Sugar's Twice as Sweet: Sugar, Georgia: Book 1 by Marina Adair Read Free Book Online

it hostage while examining the house. “Okay, you’ve seen the house. It’s a heap. Where am I taking you? The closest motel is two towns over, so I’m guessing—”
    “What makes you think I’m not staying here?”
    He gave an amused snort and tossed the bag in the back of the truck, grabbing for another.
    “What are you doing? Let go of my bag.” She yanked the suitcase free and slammed it on the ground, narrowly missing his foot. Boo barked his support.
    Brett took off his hat and looked at the sky as if asking for divine intervention. Her dad did that a lot around her, too.
    “Look, you don’t have a phone or a car, and I doubt this place even has electricity.” Facts she was well aware of. “If you give me a minute to stop by my grandmother’s, I can take you to Atlanta.”
    Josephina’s stomach fisted into a painful ball. She didn’t want to go to Atlanta, or anywhere else for that matter. She wanted to stay here, in Sugar, and forget everything that had happened.
    “Just think, in two hours I can get you checked into a fancy room with a view of the city. A nice bubble bath, a little room service. Then tomorrow you can book yourself a flight—”
    “I don’t need room service. And I’m not going back!”
    “Who knows what’s crawling around inside?”
    “I can deal with a few rats.”
    That seemed to amuse Brett. “You know, everything’s bigger in the South.”
    “Are you referring to your penis?”
    “No, I was referring to the size of our rats, which could carry your kissy-boo dog to their lair. But since you brought it up—”
    She held up a hand. “No. And I believe it’s Texas.”
    “Texas?”
    “Yes. The saying, it’s everything’s bigger in Texas. Georgia is the peach state.”
    Brett’s grin widened and a wicked twinkle flashed in his eyes. “Now who’s talking dirty?” When she didn’t laugh, Brett seemed to soften. “I’m just saying that you need to be realistic.”
    “What I need is for you to get the hell off my property.”
    “Christ, I’ve never met such a stubborn woman.” Brett rubbed at the back of his neck. “Wait? Your property?”
    “Yes, my aunt Letty left Fairchild House and all of its giant-rat glory to me.”
    “Holy shit. Joie?” No one had called her that since, well, him.
    “Josephina—”
    “I know who you are. The little blonde pixie who claimed to be able to fly, but I had to rescue from that big old oak tree.”
    “I never said I was a pixie.” She’d said fairy. “I said that I was merely working on my levitation skills.” And she had been. In her head.
    “You still afraid of heights?”
    “No.” Kind of . “And since we have established who I am, that would mean you’re the one trespassing, Bart . Maybe I should call the sheriff.”
    “Brett,” he corrected. “And you’d need a phone to do that.”
    She shrugged, grabbed one of her bags, and dragged it up the stairs, smacking each step in the process, hoping he’d take the clue and leave.
    “Fine,” he hollered after her. “At least let me bring in your bags, check the electricity, and make sure there aren’t any bears or squatters hiding inside.”
    “Bears? Do I look stupid?”
    “No comment,” he grumbled, picking up four bags at once and, with ease, setting them in the foyer before stomping through the house, mumbling derogatory things about the opposite sex.
     Josephina walked into the entryway and forgot to breathe. The outside might need a nip here and tuck there…or possibly a complete facial transplant, but the inside was just as she remembered it—magical.
    The entryway, circular and whimsical, spanned the full two stories. Its hand-painted ceiling highlighted the enormous crystal chandelier that hung between two staircases, which hugged either wall, meeting in the middle and creating a freestanding walkway.
    When she was little, Josephina used to lie on the entryway floor and stare at the ceiling, trying to imagine how many fairies it must have