Her Name Is Trouble: A small-town contemporary romance (The Daimsbury Chronicles Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

home-made Girl Scout cookies—she’d once read that Luke said his dream would be an assortment of such goodies to nibble on freely—Missy reached the doorstep of the Morelli household on the outskirts of town and stopped under the porch.
    She could do this, surely. Deep breath. Ben would also never let her live it down that she owed Luke an apology for her catastrophic conduct the other day, and her own manners had plagued her for the past forty-eight hours, telling her she couldn’t hide out like a coward. She might’ve shrugged off the mantle of the true Southern belle but she still had standards, thank you very much.
    So here she stood, peace offering in hand, and more devious motive carefully hidden. Okay, she just wanted some information; how wrong could that be? She had come to apologise.
    The bell chimed a sound resembling Big Ben, and seconds later, the door swung open to reveal Liam Morelli with a small towel on a shoulder and a tiny baby lying stomach down on his left arm. The two of them melted her heart.
    “Best accessory for a man,” she said with a nod towards the baby. “Honey, you’re a sight for sore eyes.”
    Liam chuckled. “Yeah. If I could, I’d hold him all the time, but Honor’s adamant we don’t let him get too used to being held.”
    “And she’d be right to say so. Speaking of Honor, is she here?”
    No self-respecting Southern woman entered another female’s house without her consent, especially if the homeowner was married. Hell, in Louisiana, a wife could legitimately sock another woman if she found her alone in her kitchen with her husband.
    “She’s gone out with my mum and Andie.”
    Right—Liam’s teenage daughter from his first marriage. And that meant there wouldn’t be any woman inside. Her code of ethics did not support that.
    Liam lifted his arm to bring the baby up and he dropped a kiss on the downy head. “So it’s just us lads. Innit, Ryan?” he asked his son.
    Missy wanted to go all “aww” on them, but she couldn’t. She’d have to rethink her strategy—
    “Come on in.” Liam stepped away from the entrance so she could enter.
    “Actually, I can’t. Like, it wouldn’t be respectful to Honor for me to come in when she’s not here—”
    “Missy, this is not the American South,” a deep voice said from inside, around a chuckle.
    She gulped, pushing down all her good sense in the process. Luke was here, just beyond that door. A peek inside showed him on the three-seater sofa in the front room, left leg propped up on pillows on the coffee table.
    The baby, Ryan, started squirming and a soft mewl escaped him. In a flash, Liam had turned him around and pressed him to his shoulder.
    “Oh, no, you don’t. If you start crying now, you won’t stop and then your mummy will never leave you alone with me again...” His words faded as he walked back into the house towards what she assumed to be the kitchen.
    How precious. Everyone knew Honor had already been pregnant with another man’s child when she and Liam met, yet look how he loved that baby like his own. Honor Whelan-Morelli had landed herself a true gem with him.
    Left alone on the porch, Missy had no other option than to step into the house and close the door behind her. The basket weighed heavy in her hand, and she shuffled in place all while giving Luke a shy, contrived smile. Suddenly, her good idea to come mine information didn’t seem so brilliant anymore.
    Luke sat up straighter on the couch.
    “You’re not gonna stand there all day, right?” A hint of humour permeated his tone.
    She shook her head and started forward, only to catch the tip of her sneakers into the rug. With a quick hand out to clasp the nearby sofa, she righted herself just in time to not splatter all over the living room floor.
    A wave of mortification burned through her under his steady—and unbelieving; she didn’t miss those raised eyebrows—perusal. Dang flat shoes. She could walk for miles in heels and not falter,