Synopsis

College sweethearts reunite to restore more than just an old inn in this new romance by Katie Shepard, author of Sweeten the Deal.

When’s the best time to tell your ex that you want them back? Probably not in the middle of a Category 3 hurricane. But when Broadway actor Tom Wilczewski is about to dive into the floodwaters to rescue his co-lead, he calls the ex-wife he hasn’t seen in ten years to swear he still loves her and ask for a chance to make things right. Two months later, Rose Kelly is tired of seeing pictures of her ex-husband Tom rescuing Hollywood darling Boyd Kellagher. Not that she’s jealous. Of course not. She’s far too busy taking care of her elderly aunt and worrying about the storm damage to the family B&B on Martha’s Vineyard to miss the love of her life. But after belatedly hearing Tom’s voicemail, Rosie asks him to follow through on his promises for once by helping her fix the inn. Thinking this is the perfect way to win her back, Tom agrees. When they get there, things are…less than ideal. Rosie expected the inn to be in better shape. She expected it to have more beds. And she expected more help from her actual family—not from Tom and the rest of his Broadway cast. But Rosie begins to wonder if maybe the life she expected isn’t the one she really wants. If she and Tom can repair the inn together, can they possibly repair the damage to the relationship they both thought was long gone?

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Excerpt

Rose clenched her jaw when she saw the article her aunt was reading.

“That newspaper is three months old,” Rose informed her aunt.

“Oh? Well, like you said, I have short-term memory loss. It’ll be new to me,” her aunt said with purposeful sweetness.

Rose recognized the picture on the page because she couldn’t mentally erase the image of her ex-husband’s distinctive Greek-god nose smooshed up against the equally distinctive profile of Boyd fucking Kellagher.

As if she needed something else to deal with! This was the year Tom had to make the national news with his tongue in someone else’s mouth!

If the Times article was to be believed, Rose had at least another year of news ahead of her about Tom smooshing faces with Boyd Kellagher onstage. And, hell, probably offstage too, based on the equally pervasive image of Tom dragging the movie star out of the floodwaters, the other man clinging to Tom’s neck like a giant, chiseled damsel in distress. Rose did not want to see it again. Those photos gave her the same uncomfortable feelings as real estate listings for homes she could never afford or other people’s holiday cards, pictures that made her quickly turn the page or close the card.

It wasn’t that she begrudged Tom his first big Broadway role in ten years. Or kissing Boyd Kellagher. Or even Boyd Kellagher kissing Tom. She was unsurprised he had a gorgeous boyfriend now. But if Tom was going to get everything he ever wanted-love, fame, professional success-could Rose not get just one thing? If not Tom, if not a family of her own, why could she not at least get a couple of happy weeks of vacation every year spent preparing extravagant meals and group photo shoots in matching sweaters? It didn’t seem like too much to ask for.

“I’ve seen it already,” Rose said, trying not to sound as stressed as she felt.

“So handsome,” Max cooed, and she could have been referring to either Tom or Boyd. “I always liked him.”

“No, you didn’t,” Rose retorted, snapping at the bait before she could stop herself. This was revisionist history. “None of you did. You told me not to marry him.”

“Telling you not to marry him is different from liking him. I thought he was a nice boy. You should have waited for him to grow up.”

Tom’s age had nothing to do with it. “We just ended up wanting different things.” That was her standard line on their divorce, one that assigned no blame while obscuring the painful truth that Rose, specifically, had not been one of the things Tom wanted.

“And you didn’t even send us a wedding present,” Rose said, certain that would get her aunt off the subject.

Max raised her eyebrows, unimpressed. “I’m sorry, but we all assumed you were in a family way and too embarrassed to admit it before the wedding. I was going to get all your nursery furniture.”

Rose stiffened her shoulders in familiar hurt because she’d known what her family thought, but nobody had ever given her the chance to set them straight. She hadn’t married Tom because she was pregnant, then or ever, or for tax reasons, or to get him on her health insurance, or for any of the other reasons people had speculated about their marriage at twenty-two.

She’d married him because he’d asked her and because she’d loved him-she’d been utterly, stupidly in love with him-and she’d thought it would last forever. Which had made their breakup only a year later much more embarrassing than an unexpected baby would have been.

But that was a long time ago now. What was really embarrassing was that she was still having feelings about it at all, which she decided she would stop doing at once.

“Well, I wasn’t. Obviously. And I’m happy he’s finding success. He’s a very talented actor, so I’m not surprised he’s working with people like Boyd Kellagher,” Rose said, getting herself in hand and saying the things the kind of person she wanted to be would say.

“Are you going to see his new play?” her aunt asked.

“It looks like I’m going to be busy over the next few months,” Rose said dourly, checking the time again. Her family’s tardiness did not bode well for their contributions to fixing up the inn.

Excerpted from No One Does It Like You by Katie Shepard Copyright © 2024 by Katie Shepard. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

I write love stories. I write about people whose jagged edges happen to match up with someone else’s. I write love stories because I want to make happy endings for people who are afraid they won’t get them.

I studied Soviet history and worked in human rights law before burning way, way out, and achieving professional tranquility as a simple country bankruptcy lawyer. It’s just as exciting as it sounds!

I live in Texas with my husband, kids, and elderly rescue cat, but I am often found hiking in the mountains of Montana or the virtual woods of Thedas.

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