The Sweet Spot
PRAISE FOR ADRIANA LOCKE
“Adriana Locke creates magic with unforgettable romances and captivating characters. She’s a go-to author if I want to escape into a great read.”
—New York Times bestselling author S. L. Scott
“Adriana Locke writes the most delicious heroes and sassy heroines who bring them to their knees. Her books are funny, raw, and heartfelt. She also has a great smile, but that’s beside the point.”
—USA Today bestselling author L. J. Shen
“Adriana Locke is the master of small-town contemporary romance. A one-click author for the masses, her perfect blend of wit, sexy banter, and well-developed characters is guaranteed to leave readers satisfied. A book by Adriana is sure to be the romantic escape you’re looking for.”
—USA Today bestselling author Bethany Lopez
“No one does blue-collar, small-town, ‘everyman’ (and woman!) romance like Adriana Locke. She masterfully creates truly epic love stories for characters who could be your neighbor, your best friend—you! Each one is more addictive and heart-stoppingly romantic than the last.”
—USA Today bestselling author Kennedy Ryan
“Adriana’s sharp prose, witty dialogue, and flawless blend of humor and steam meld together to create unputdownable, up-all-night reads!”
—Wall Street Journal bestselling author Winter Renshaw
OTHER TITLES BY ADRIANA LOCKE
The Exception Series
The Exception
The Connection: An Exception Novella
The Perception
The Exception Series box set
Landry Family Series
Sway
Swing
Switch
Swear
Swink
Sweet
The Landry Family Series: Part One
The Landry Family Series: Part Two
The Gibson Boys Series
Crank
Craft
Cross (a novella)
Crave
Crazy
Dogwood Lane Series
Tumble
Tangle
Trouble
Carmichael Family Series
Flirt
Fling
Stand-Alone Novels
Sacrifice
Wherever It Leads
Written in the Scars
Battle of the Sexes
Lucky Number Eleven
Like You Love Me
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2022 by Adriana Locke
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781662504006 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 9781662503993 (digital)
Cover design by Letitia Hasser
Cover photography by Regina Wamba of ReginaWamba.com
Cover images: © Haoxiang Yang / Getty; © Evgenii Emelianov / Shutterstock
To my children, Alexander, Aristotle,
Achilles, and Ajax.
You will never know how much I love you.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE PALMER
CHAPTER TWO PALMER
CHAPTER THREE COLE
CHAPTER FOUR PALMER
CHAPTER FIVE PALMER
CHAPTER SIX PALMER
CHAPTER SEVEN COLE
CHAPTER EIGHT PALMER
CHAPTER NINE PALMER
CHAPTER TEN PALMER
CHAPTER ELEVEN COLE
CHAPTER TWELVE PALMER
CHAPTER THIRTEEN PALMER
CHAPTER FOURTEEN COLE
CHAPTER FIFTEEN COLE
CHAPTER SIXTEEN PALMER
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN COLE
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN PALMER
CHAPTER NINETEEN PALMER
CHAPTER TWENTY COLE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE PALMER
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO PALMER
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE PALMER
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR COLE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE PALMER
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX COLE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN PALMER
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT PALMER
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE COLE
CHAPTER THIRTY PALMER
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE PALMER
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO COLE
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE PALMER
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR COLE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE PALMER
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX COLE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN PALMER
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT COLE
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE PALMER
CHAPTER FORTY COLE
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE PALMER
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO COLE
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE PALMER
EPILOGUE PALMER
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
PALMER
You’ve been warned.”
I plop on a barstool across from my best friend, Val. She wipes her hands on a white dishrag and side-eyes my situation. Because I’m clearly a situation.
My mascara doesn’t look as neat as it did when I applied it . . . yesterday morning. But that’s what happens when you stay up late matching socks and wake up to a hungry twelve-year-old who’s already missed the bus. Still, it might’ve been okay if I hadn’t rubbed my eyes during a bout of allergies after bebopping through the bus yard at work like I own the damned place.
I sigh.
Early-afternoon sunlight streams in the windows of Fletcher’s, the only restaurant in a ten-mile radius. The aroma of my favorite Friday lunch, open-faced beef manhattan sandwiches, perfumes the air. Before I can order one to go, I notice the line drawn through it on the menu board.
Of course.
“I’m afraid to ask . . . ,” Val says, handing me a glass of tea. God bless this woman.
“If I didn’t enjoy my job so much, I’d quit.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You need the money, and Kirk pays you too much to walk away.”
“Fine.” I sigh, swirling the straw around the glass. “If I didn’t enjoy my job so much and Kirk didn’t pay me well, I’d quit.”
Val giggles.
“I had a customer call for a radiator surge tank today,” I say.
“A radiator what?”
“Surge tank. I’ll spare you the details. It’s a very specific bus part that we usually keep in stock. That’s all you need to know.”
“Okay. Noted.”
“So, I get the order for the tank, and I call the shop to see if we have one. Burt insisted we didn’t. Like, he was ready to fight me over it. But the whole time we were talking, I could hear the little farming game he plays on his phone mooing and clucking.”
“Ooh, this isn’t going to end well,” Val says, her eyes sparkling.
“I have two choices, right? I can take Burt’s word for it, since he is the shop manager, and just call the customer back and relay the information. Or I can do what’s right by Kirk, since I am the assistant general manager, and go see if there’s a bus with the tank in the yard—because I know there is. I know it.”
Val bites her lip. “You had one, didn’t you?”
“Three!” My blood pressure shoots up again. “I wasn’t going to go look. I was just going to call the customer back and tell them we were out of stock, but it ate at my soul. So I put my boots on and marched into the bus yard—through the mud from the last five days of rain—and found them my damn self.” I take a quick breath and blow it out. “I then proceeded to have a brilliant come-apart worthy of a night in the hospital, but we’re not talking about that.”
She laughs. “This explains the mud on your jeans.” She leans toward me and peers at the side of my head. “And on your ear. Come here.”
I tip my head toward her, and she plucks a glob of gunk off my right earlobe.
“You just . . . sit there, drink your tea, and calm down. I’m going to go wash my hands,” she says. “Be right back.”
I take a long, cold drink and feel the sugary sweetness slide down my throat. The tea helps settle the tornado roaring inside me. But that’s what life always feels like these days—a giant natural disaster.
There’s beauty in the storm. I know that and I appreciate it. I even start my day off by listing things that I’m grateful for out loud. It’s supposed to help build a pattern of positive thinking—at least that’s what the TikTok influencers say while I’m scrolling in the middle of the night.
But it’s still a damn storm.
I’m lifting my glass to take another sip of sugar when a shoulder brushes against mine. I’m two seconds from turning and giving someone a warning . . . but stop.
My body stills as a set of large, calloused hands presses against the laminate countertop next to me.
Thick, muscled wrists attach to forearms the size of my biceps. The space around me is impregnated with a very heady, very masculine vibe.
A bubble of curiosity blooms in my stomach. The intrigue grows as a rich, balmy scent licks at my senses. It’s the kind of cologne I love—the type that makes the person smelling it feel better, more confident, more attractive by proxy.
That is not a harbinger of good things, though. I know from experience.
I ignore the warning bells dinging in my head like the seasoned expert I am and twist to the side . . . and nearly fall off my stool.
Holy. Man. Candy.
His hair—thick and wild, lying to the side in an errant wave—is the color of tobacco. It’s a stark juxtaposition to the chips of sapphire sparkling in his eyes. A sharp jaw is dusted with more than a day’s worth of stubble, finishing the glorious package with a sinful edge.
“Hey,” he says, his voice smooth and inviting.
“I’m sorry,” I say, finding my voice. “Do I know you?”
He grins. “Not yet.”
Damn it. My insides tighten, and I squirm in my seat.
“That’s actually why I sat down,” he says. “I was hoping that you’d give me your number.”
What?
He laughs at the look on my face. The sound is warm and effortless—the audible version of his cologne.
“And why would I give you my number?” Because you’re gorgeous. “I don’t even know your name.”
“That’s an easy fix.”
His smile blurs the chaos of the restaurant bustling around us. It’s as if it’s just us in the room, and he doesn’t notice anything but me.
“Knowing your name is not a good enough reason to give you my number,” I say, lifting a brow.
“What if I told you that my buddy sitting at the round table by the window bet me a hundred dollars that you wouldn’t give it to me?”
“I’d say one of two things. Either this is a big joke, and I look like a sucker in my dirty jeans and old Florida State sweatshirt,” I say, remembering that I barely finger combed my hair this morning before tossing it up on my head, “or he knew that you’d say that and was trying to toss me a red flag so I’d blow you off.”
He grins.
“And that was not an innuendo,” I say, pointing a finger in his direction.
His grin turns into a chuckle. I find myself smiling right back at him.
“This isn’t a joke,” he says.
“So then it’s a red flag.” I narrow my eyes playfully. “But what kind of a red flag? Hmm. Maybe you’re a mass murderer as your side gig. You could be a Dexter, for all I know.”
He laughs. “Nope. I haven’t killed anyone.”
“Maybe you don’t like puppies?”
His shoulders tremble as he chuckles again. I can’t help but notice how broad they are.
“I love puppies,” he says. “I’ll be honest—not a huge kitten guy. But puppies are awesome.”
I lean back and study him. “Then are you the guy that doesn’t clear the remaining time off the microwave? It must be that.”
His chuckle turns into a full-blown laugh. “That’s it—you got me. I open the door with a few seconds left and just leave it.”
“I’d almost prefer it if you were a mass murderer.” A grin kisses my lips. “But I suppose it’s better for mankind this way.”
Val comes by and asks him if he wants anything else. Their interaction is breezy. His charm cuts through his presence and puts Val at ease. She’s normally a tougher nut to crack.
But I realize something else—he’s put me at ease too.
“Do you want to order lunch?” Val asks me. “Or did you just come by to say hello?”
My stomach growls, but nothing sounds good but the sold-out lunch special. “I’m good.”
Val takes a quick look at the guy before sliding her gaze back to me. “I think you are.” She winks before strolling toward the kitchen.
“What did you say your name was?” he asks after Val walks away.
“I didn’t.”
He rests against the counter with his body angled toward mine. A black and gold baseball cap is pulled low on his forehead. “Well, my name is Colson Beck. You can call me Cole.”
I study him for a moment. Besides being ridiculously handsome and delightfully alluring, he also seems . . . nice.
It’s just a little banter. One conversation. What can it hurt?
“I’m Palmer Clark. You can call me Palmer.”
He smiles. “Are you from around here?”
I lean against the bar and angle my body toward his, mimicking his posture.
“Yes,” I say. “And obviously you are not.”
“True. I’m a California boy, lover of sunshine and salt water.”
“Oh, are you a surfer?”
He laughs. “No. I’m terrible on a surfboard.”
“Probably safer. You know, sharks and all.”
“That’s what my mother says. I lie to her every time I go to the ocean just so she doesn’t worry.”
I gasp. “You lie to your mother? That’s awful.”
“It’s better than her thinking I’m going to die all afternoon,” he says, his voice tinged with a laugh.
I can’t help but grin at Cole. “Okay. Fine. That’s true.”
He fiddles with a napkin on the counter. His fingers work the paper back and forth in the same tempo as his boot-clad foot tapping against the floor. The entire thing is so casual and disarming that my frustration from Burt and his ridiculousness drifts away.
“Who are you, anyway?” I ask. “Why are you here?”
“My parents moved here six months ago, and I came to visit them. Perks of retirement.”
“Not judging or anything, but aren’t you too young for retirement?”
The question pleases him. A slow smile slips across his face.
“The average age for retirement in professional baseball is thirty,” he says. “I am—was—the catcher for the San Diego Swifts. So, short answer is no. I’m right on target.”
Professional baseball?
What?
He leans back and runs his hands along his thighs. I make a point not to watch the movement. There’s no sense in torturing myself. Besides, I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that a professional baseball player is in Bloomfield, Ohio.
“Maybe we could have dinner or something while I’m in town,” he says, his words measured more carefully than before.
My stomach flip-flops at the invitation, and my insides war with how to respond.
I need to decline. For so many reasons, I should give Cole a smile and send him on his way. But needs and wants are two totally different stories, and right now, the line between them is muddy.
“Dinner?” he asks again. “Or lunch? I can even do breakfast, if you’d rather.”
My face flushes, and I move around in my seat. I’m about to give in, to say yes to dinner, when my gaze lands on the tiny tattoo on my wrist. The delicate lotus flower reminds me every day that beautiful things can come from the dirtiest waters. I just have to keep growing.
“Thank you,” I say, forcing a swallow. “But no.”
His brows shoot to the ceiling. “No?”
I shrug. “No.”
“There’s a word I don’t hear often.”
Instead of it coming across as cocky, it borders on self-deprecating. It’s surprisingly adorable.
“Fish is never going to let me live this down,” he says, his words teasing.
“Fish?”
“My friend that’s sitting back there.”
I glance over my shoulder at a large blond man sitting near the window. Also handsome.
“Who cares?” I say, turning back to Cole. “He shares his name with an aquatic vertebrate.”
He laughs. “He’s a big deal, you know.”