The Gull Motel
A Sweet Contemporary Romance
by Amie Denman
Savvy
Thorpe needs a vacation. Finally finished with college, she heads to her
favorite shabby motel on Florida’s Gulf Coast where her aunt and uncle always
save her room twenty-four. She quickly finds out, though, that The Gull Motel
is not just her home away from home. It’s hers to manage while her aunt and
uncle take an extended trip.
Skip McComber, The Gull’s former
maintenance man, has been working on Savvy’s nuts and bolts for years. Now the
new owner of the bar next door, his mission is to renovate a pirate bar while
being a walking temptation for the girl he can’t get off his mind.
For Savvy, keeping her cool running a motel
in Florida heat is one thing, but navigating the steamy waters of a former
fling takes a whole other kind of savvy. In addition to the motel and the man
next door, Savvy stumbles on a plot to swindle land from the residents of
Barefoot Key. Devalued properties tumble like dominoes until Savvy musters her
colorful crew from The Gull Motel to make the pillagers walk the plank.
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First chapter:
Chapter One
Vacation. Despite
my brainy reputation, this was one of the smartest things I’d done in a long
time. When my middle school math teacher shortened my name from Savannah to
Savvy, I took on a persona that drove me all the way through college at the top
of my class. But now, I planned to put my brain on ice and my butt in the hot
sand at my aunt and uncle’s lovably shabby beachside Florida motel. It was the
most savvy thing I could do while I played an endless waiting game with the job
market.
It was a hot September
morning when I rolled into the steaming lot at the Gull Motel. Everything about
it said Old Florida. A miniature palm tree grew in a concrete planter in front
of the Office sign. The few cars
nosed up to numbered doors looked hot enough to combust. It wasn’t a hotel, it
didn’t have the cachet. But it looked like a four-diamond resort to me as my
burly Uncle Mike swung open the frosted glass office door and grinned at me
like Santa had just landed on his roof.
“Your aunt’s got
the margarita machine going already,” he said, crushing me in a massive hug.
The musty smell of hotel air conditioning permeated his aqua blue polo shirt.
The whole range of my vision was aqua—the signature color of The Gull Motel.
Its roof had aqua trim, the windows were edged in the same paint, and the sign
squatting on top of a twenty foot pole in the parking lot boasted a white
seagull outlined against an aqua sky.
“Before lunch?” I questioned, the vacationer
in me at war with my responsible side.
Uncle Mike opened
the back hatch and manhandled my suitcase. He nodded toward his beloved motel.
“You’re a special occasion,” he said. “Vacation is important. Trust me. I’ve
built a business on it.”
For the long drive
from Michigan—where autumn had started to show its colors—I wore old
comfortable knee-length shorts and a t-shirt, but I was overdressed now. The
clientele here was more short-shorts and spaghetti straps than college dorm
casual. I could adjust. This was not my first trip to the Gulf Coast.
I followed Uncle
Mike through the office—dingy but familiar—and paused as he deposited my
suitcase behind the desk. Rita, the receptionist, had a phone hooked between
her ear and shoulder as she simultaneously checked in a guest. Somehow she
managed to wave to me and give me a raised eyebrow smile. An experienced
multi-tasker, Rita could probably smoke a cigarette, do her nails, and handle
three guest complaints at the same time. She pointed toward the patio.
Movement—blurred
by condensation—grabbed my attention. When my uncle slid the door open, a
blonde tornado hit me. I’d been coming to The Gull several times a year all my
life. One fact I could still count on was that Aunt Carol got smaller with age
but her hair got bigger. Compensation comes in many forms.
She pulled me into
a tight hug. “You need a nice cold drink.”
Carol hauled me
over to a concrete table surrounded by old metal chairs. The patio was large
enough for several tables and chairs, all shaded by aqua umbrellas. The cracked
concrete floor surrounded by a knee-high concrete wall didn’t necessarily
invite guests to linger, but the view did.
The wide white
Florida beach ending in a sparkling blue Gulf of Mexico said resort even if the stacked two story
building with parking right outside the rooms said 1950s beach motel.
Carol raised the
pitcher—also filled with aqua liquid continuing the theme of The Gull—and
started to fill three glasses. She didn’t get to the third before Rita shoved
the glass door open and leaned out with the cordless phone.
“Better take this
one, Carol,” she said, holding out the phone.
Mike parked
himself across from me while his wife went inside. “Your aunt’s all excited to
have you down here for a few weeks. I think she wants to pick your brain about
making a few updates around here, figuring you got some great ideas with your
degree.”
Fresh from college
and an internship to polish off my hotel and hospitality management degree, I
wouldn’t be bragging to say I had some ideas. But telling my aunt and uncle
they’d have to spiff up The Gull for a new generation that didn’t remember the
moon landing was going to be a tough sell. They loved the old place just as it
was. Truth is, so did I. I also loved my ancient slippers, but I wouldn’t wear
them on a date.
“I think she wants
someone to go shopping with, too,” he said, his broad smile highlighting deep
wrinkles around his eyes and stretching out his age spots.
“I could shop,” I
agreed. “My college clothes won’t work if I can land a spot in the management
trainee program I applied to.”
“The Grand
Chicago. Heck of a fancy place,” Uncle Mike said, raising his glass and
clinking mine. “I’ll drink to that.”
Thinking about the
gleaming floors, modern luxury, and five-star everything at the place where I
hoped to start in January gave me a little feeling of disloyalty. I would
always love The Gull. So what that it was a used Chevy and the Grand Chicago
was a Rolls Royce? I’d put in a lot of miles in a Chevrolet.
Carol left the
sliding door gaping behind her, striding quickly to our sunny table on the
patio.
“My mother got
arrested again,” she said, picking up one of the margarita glasses and slamming
half of it.
Mike pulled Carol
onto his lap and shook his head sympathetically. “What was it this time?”
“Trespassing
again. One of her card buddies bailed her out, but the police chief thinks she
needs a babysitter. That was him on the phone.”
“He’s a nice
enough guy. But we’re starting to know him better than we should,” Mike said.
“Does this mean someone’s headed for Michigan?”
Carol’s mother,
Aunt Gwen to me, was pushing eighty and still did water aerobics, played cards,
and hosted wine-making classes at her lakeside cabin. Located next to a
vineyard, the owners used to look the other way when Aunt Gwen gathered grapes
near her property line for her little hobby. I’d heard she sent them a bottle
every Christmas as a neighborly gesture. However, the vineyard changed hands a
few years ago and the new owners see her actions as more theft than
eccentricity.
“Maybe just for a
week until we can talk some sense into her or build a big enough fence,” Carol
said. “Too bad she refuses to move down here. Says Florida is for old people.”
“Sounds like
you’ll need reinforcements this time.” Uncle Mike blew out a long breath. “We
haven’t had a vacation in a long time, and Michigan’s nice in the fall. Guess
we’ll figure out someone to watch over the place while we’re gone.”
They exchanged a
glance and turned a laser-beam look on me, making me feel like the one guy who
knew the combination in a bank that was being robbed. They glanced away quickly
like a search light moving on to its next target.
The loyal niece in
me wanted to say sure, coach, send me in.
I have a degree in hotel management, am nice to children and animals, and
always flush the toilet.
The vacationer in
me wanted to say…uh…I’m on vacation.
Carol sucked both lips
into her mouth and watched a seagull fly over. Mike scratched the short
whiskers on his chin and toed a chip in the concrete.
I tried drinking
for distraction and effect. Not that I could sustain that tactic for long. I
can’t hold my booze and I tend to crack under pressure faster than chapped lips
in a Michigan winter.
“Maybe I could—”
Yelling and
barking exploded next door and a half-naked man chased a huge yellow dog out of
Harvey’s Pirate Emporium and toward The Gull.
I jumped up.
“Tulip!” Tulip was a three-year-old yellow Lab who did not know she wasn’t a
puppy anymore. She stole things, slept in inappropriate locations, ate stray
cigarette butts, and was probably going to come home with a tattoo one of these
days.
“Not again,” Carol
said.
Tulip skidded to a
stop, dropped something shapeless and slobbery on the patio at my feet, and put
her front paws on my shoulders. I sat down hard in my metal chair, off balance
and getting licked like a tootsie pop. I was afraid she’d actually find out how
many licks it took to get to my center.
The man sweating
and breathing hard as he finished the race behind the dog already knew how many
licks it took to get to my center. Skip McComber had circled me for years, a
bonus temptation every time I visited my aunt and uncle’s motel where he’d been
the maintenance man since we were both sixteen. Last spring, the circle
tightened considerably, aided by a reckless spring break attitude and fueled by
tequila.
I stood up and tried to compose myself
discretely. He looked as tempting as always. Tall, shirtless, eyes and hair the
color of caramel splashed with sunshine. In contrast, I looked like a refugee
from a pajama party. Shorts twisted, t-shirt violated, ponytail askew. Given
the heat burning my cheeks, it was safe to assume I was flushed like an
eighty-year-old jogger.
“This must be
yours,” I said, picking up the leather toolbelt Tulip had dropped at my feet.
Covered in dog slime and violated with teethmarks in several places, it was the
dog’s latest indiscretion. I could sympathize. Skip was my most recent fling,
too.
He took the
toolbelt and made a slow show of slinging it around his hips. He kept eye
contact with me the whole time, like he was daring me to watch his seductive
buckling up. I only let my eyes slide south once. I was on vacation. And he looked that good.
“Sorry about
that,” my aunt said. “Tulip thinks it’s a chew toy. At least your tools are
still in it this time and not scattered all over the sand. Most of them
anyway.”
He broke his focus
on me and smiled at my aunt. “It’s my fault for encouraging her to visit me.”
He dug a treat out of his pocket and flipped it to the dog. She caught it in
midair and tossed him a look of slutty affection.
“Savvy just rolled
in a few minutes ago,” Carol said.
“I can see that,”
Skip said.
“She was supposed
to be enjoying a vacation after all her hard work in college,” Mike added, “but
something has come up back home in Michigan with Carol’s mother.”
“Hope Aunt Gwen’s
okay,” Skip said. “She’s a hoot.”
Carol rolled her eyes.
“She’s a crazy old lady. Arrested again for liberating grapes from the
neighboring vineyard.”
“Probably only
stole what she was going to eat.”
“Or make into
wine,” Mike said. “We were just talking to Savvy here about taking care of The
Gull for us while we make a quick trip North.”
Mike, Carol, Skip,
and even Tulip stood in a line, looking at me like I had a stash of free
tickets to Disney World. Except Tulip maybe. She probably hoped I had bacon in
my pockets.
“I believe I was
just about to say yes,” I said with as much cheerful enthusiasm as possible. Of
course I wanted to help my aunt and uncle. Hospitality is my business. And how
hard could it be to manage a twenty-four room beach motel with an established
clientele and a dedicated staff?
“Forgot to tell
you we lost our maintenance man last month,” Mike said, nodding at Skip. “He
bought the bar next door and he’s fixing it up.”
“Harvey’s Pirate
Emporium?” I asked.
“Yep,” Skip said.
“But I got rid of Harvey already.”
Harvey was a
larger-than-life pirate statue who stood, shading his eyes like a tobacco store
Indian, outside the bar entrance. After a few drinks, he looked either
friendlier or more sinister, depending on the drunk.
“Gave me the
willies,” Skip said, shrugging one shoulder. “Got him in cold storage in an old
walk-in freezer.”
“Won’t be the same
without him,” I said. What I was really thinking was that The Gull wouldn’t be
the same without Skip and his extraordinary ability with his hands. “Who’s our
new maintenance man?”
“Don’t have one. Muddling
through for now, calling Skip over for emergencies,” Uncle Mike said.
“I can change
light bulbs, but I draw the line at using a plunger.”
“That’ll work,”
Carol said.
“Any other
surprises I should know about?” I asked.
I thought a trace
of tension transmitted from Carol to Mike to Skip, but Tulip didn’t seem to
notice and I thought I was just seeing mirages in the heat.
“Gotta go,” Skip
said. He ruffled Tulip’s ears, flicked me a look, and strode across the ten
yards of sand separating his bar from my—temporary—motel. I had extension cords
longer than the space between our buildings, and it was going to be one tough
job keeping my focus on The Gull while my aunt and uncle were away.
********
Amie Denman: Where
Falling in Love is Fun!
Annie Denman lives in a small town in her
native Ohio with her husband and sons. Her two cats and large yellow Labrador are
kind enough to share a sunny office where she lets her imagination run wild.
Reading books was her favorite escape as a child, and growing up four houses
away from the community library encouraged her addiction. When she’s not
reading or writing, she enjoys walking and running outside. The helpless victim
of a lifetime of curiosity, she’s been known to chase fire trucks on her
bicycle just to see what’s going on. Amie believes that everything is fun:
especially roller coasters, weeding cake and falling in love.
Amie is the author of six contemporary romance novels:
The Gull
Motel, Blue Bottle Beach, Her Lucky Catch
Her Lucky
Prize, Will Work for Love, He’s on Her Trail
Please visit her at www.amiedenman.co
On Twitter @amiedenman
Giveaway
Welcome to Allthingsbokie Amie
1.
Can you tell us what prompted you to first start
writing? What was the first thing you wrote?
My love of reading combined with the running
storyline in my head made me start writing books. The first thing I wrote was a
time travel Western. I’ll NEVER publish it, but it’s fun to read it over every
now and then.
2.
Can you summarize your latest work in just a few
words?
Savvy Thorpe visits her
aunt and uncle’s aging Florida beach motel for a vacation, but she ends up with
a whole lot more.
3.
What was the inspiration for this book?
First of all, I love Florida and beach
vacations. Also, there is an aging 1950s era motel in the town where I live
called The Gull Motel. I’ve been driving by it and thinking up stories for over
a decade. So I finally moved the motel to Florida (in my imagination) and wrote
a book about it. Now I drive by it and smile!
4.
Did you do any research for the book?
Two of my sisters live in Florida and they
suggested part of the plot. I have also taken numerous “research” trips to
Florida just to make sure the book is authentic. It was a terrible hardship.
5.
What does a typical writing day involve for you?
I have to write in the early mornings and late
nights when the rest of the household (husband, two sons, two cats, one dog) is
quiet. I have an “office” in a second story porch that we enclosed, but in the
summer my office is the screened porch downstairs.
6.
How do you decide on the names for your
characters?
I have to think of the
names before I can start writing. I agonize about this until I get it just
right. Names are important! My sister (who is also my critique partner) helps
me and often comes up with the perfect name.
7.
Which writers have influenced your own writing?
Fun contemporary authors
such as Janet Evanovich and Kristan Higgins. Great historical authors like
Julia Quinn and Lisa Kleypas. And I love Nora Roberts!
8.
What are you working on next? Do you have a WIP?
I am working on a
trilogy based upon three romances at a summer amusement park and resort called
Starlight Point. The first two books are complete and the third is complete in
my mind.
9.
What has been the best part of the writing
process…and the worst?
The best part is all the
wonderful support from fellow authors and people in the writing business. The worst
part is getting a rejection!
10.Tell us about
your travels.
My parents have a
serious case of wanderlust, so I have been over a lot of roads in my life. When
I was very young, my Dad built a motorhome on the back of a used truck. It
wasn’t elegant, but we travelled many miles in it. From Ohio, we drove up to
Maine, down to Florida, and “out West.”
As an adult, I’ve passed on the wanderlust gene to my children. My boys
think they are deprived if they don’t go on at least three vacations a year! I
love Florida and Virginia in particular. And Cape Charles. I think I’m destined
to live there someday.
11.Tell us about
your childhood.
I think it might have
been a novelist’s dream, now that I consider it. I am one of four daughters
(imagine the drama) and grew up a few houses down from the library. My parents
encouraged us all to read and always had books in the house. Reading and travel
are the highlights of my childhood, and I draw on both of them as I write.
12.Do you plot
your novels or allow them to develop as you write?
I plot them
chapter-by-chapter, but often end up redoing the master chart about halfway
through the book. My characters get away from me and do things I don’t expect,
so I have to change my plans!
13. Have you
taken any creative writing courses and would you recommend them?
I attended a workshop
and online course given by Margie Lawson and it opened my eyes about strong
writing. I highly recommend signing up for a course from her. I have been to
many writer’s conferences and workshops and have tried to absorb everything.
The best book I’ve read about writing is Wired
for Story by Lisa Cron. Another eye-opener!
14.What book(s)
are you reading at the moment?
I just picked up two
historicals: Riveting his Attention
by May Williams and Lady Jenny’s
Christmas Portrait by Grace Burrowes. Although I write contemporary
romances, I love to read historicals.
15. If you were
stranded on a desert island and could only take three books with you, what
would they be and why?
I would choose long
books like War and Peace, A Tale of Two
Cities, and Les Miserables. By the time I finished all three, the rescue
boats would be waiting off shore. And, I must confess, I love those heavy
classics with pages and pages of drama.
16.Do you have
any advice for new writers?
Thank you so much Amie
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