Read Online He's So Fine by Jill Shalvis - Free Book Online Page A

claimed had been renovated before the turn of the century.
    It was probably true. Olivia just wasn’t sure which century.
    The three rooms were tiny, but she’d made the most of them. They had the timeless look she’d always wanted, an old-fashioned parlor crammed full of wonderful old things that were strewn about, things that drew the eye and made you want to reach out and touch. She’d been careful with scents, too; today she’d used the vanilla oil and the whole place smelled like Grandma’s kitchen.
    If she’d had a grandma who’d baked.
    She sold vintage clothing and assorted other things ranging from accessories to knickknacks to antique furniture. She’d accumulated everything herself, whether from estate auctions, garage sales, eBay, Craigslist, or her own closets.
    Every piece had a story, a past, which was important to her. And though she loved it all, everything had a price—except the things she had stored in a special trunk that she kept for herself. Those things were pieces of her past, and her only luxury.
    As she looked around the shop, it was with the usual surge of complicated emotions. Pride, which was easy to understand. And relief, which wasn’t.
    She’d left her old world, although, granted, not on her own terms. In fact, she’d been cut out of her old world, separated from everything and everyone she’d ever known.
    In hindsight, it was easy to see that it hadn’t been anything personal. Her show had come to an end, and that was Hollywood, baby.
    But when she’d been in it, when the sets, her trailer, the food service, and the studio had been all the home she’d ever needed, losing it had been devastating. And yeah, she’d lost her way and gone a little wild. There was no disputing that it’d taken her a long time and a lot of screw-ups to figure her shit out, but she had figured it out.
    So maybe the relief wasn’t so hard to explain after all.
    The shop bell rang, and three older women walked in. They were in polyester tracksuits in varying colors of the rainbow. Purple, pink, and green, all with bright white tennis shoes.
    The leader, the one in purple, was Lucille. Hard to determine her exact age, but it was somewhere near the three-quarters-of-a-millennium mark.
    “Heard you landed yourself in the drink and got saved by Captain Hottie,” Lucille said in lieu of a greeting.
    “Captain Hottie?” Olivia repeated.
    Lucille grinned. “Sorry. I forget you’re not a born-and-bred local. I’m talking about Cole Donovan. Did he give you mouth-to-mouth?”
    “Uh, no,” Olivia said. “And that’s not exactly how it went, by the way.”
    Lucille’s face fell. “Well, better luck next time, then.”
    Her cohorts nodded sagely.
    Lucille leaned in close to Olivia. “You may not know this, either,” she whispered like she was imparting a state secret, “but just about every woman in town would like to get with that.”
    Olivia just blinked.
    “ Get with that ,” Lucille repeated, enunciating each word as if she thought Olivia was half-deaf, or maybe just a little slow on the uptake. “It means—”
    “I know what it means,” Olivia said quickly, not wanting to hear Lucille spell it out. Good Lord. “I just…I don’t know why you’re telling me this.”
    “Because many have gone before you, but no one has succeeded,” she said.
    The others nodded like bobbleheads.
    “Succeeded in what?” Olivia asked.
    “Why, getting into his heart, of course,” Lucille said. “Not since…” She hesitated. “Well,” she said demurely, “far be it from me to spread rumors.”
    Riiiiight.
    “It’s just that he’s such a good man,” Lucille said. “And though women line up to try to catch him, he’s been laying low, not nibbling at any lines.”
    “You are aware that he’s not actually a fish,” Olivia said.
    “If he were, he’d be a really great fish,” Lucille said. “You’ve seen him, you know what I’m talking about.”
    Olivia thought back to the Blanket