Make Mine a Bad Boy Read Online Free PDF

season.
    Okay, so maybe she should’ve called more often. Or come back on weekends. But she had been terrified that Slate, and everyone else in town, would find out that while she’d shone on the performing arts stage at Bramble High, in L.A. she was just a mediocre actress with a thick Texas twang.
    So she had stayed. Unable to accept defeat, Hope suffered through long, grueling auditions with rude, critical casting directors. She’d forked over hundreds for acting lessons and voice coaches and basically had tried to fit a country square into a Hollywood star. All while she hustled tables at any restaurant or bar that would put up with her taking off for auditions or jobs.
    Not that she landed many jobs. Her biggest job had been the hemorrhoid commercial. And she’d only gotten it because the casting director was an extremely short guy who had trouble finding women his own size to date. She had to suffer through a boring dinner listening to the guy’s many “accomplishments” before the commercial was filmed and she got the first check, a check that didn’t stretch quite far enough.
    Despite these challenges, she would probably still be in California if she hadn’t completely lost her mind one night. Waking up alone in a cheap motel room had forced her into reevaluating her entire life plan and making a few minor adjustments. Like accepting the fact that she couldn’t act and returning home to marry the man she was destined to be with—the kind of man who would never leave her or let her down.
    When she returned to Bramble and was welcomed home like the prodigal daughter, Hope figured she’d made the right choice. After years of feeling like a piece of chewed-up gum on the sole of a flip-flop, it was an overwhelming relief to be back with people who loved and adored her—adored her so much that they had already planned her wedding. It seemed a little fast, but since that was why she came home, she couldn’t very well back out. So she stepped up to the plate. Except, when she got ready to swing, she discovered someone else had hit the home run and won the game, someone who hadn’t wasted five years trying to prove she was more than just a small-town girl. Someone who at that very moment was enjoying her honeymoon with Hope’s only backup plan.
    The thought riled Hope so much she forgot to pay attention to where she was walking and almost fell intothe big pothole at the corner of Maple and Main. Sidestepping the hole, she hopped up on the sidewalk and headed down Main Street. Past the post office on the corner with the big red-and-blue mailbox out front—the same mailbox she and Shirlene had dropped their unfinished Popsicles into as kids, for which they had received a stern lecture from Miguel the Postmaster about federal crimes. Past the Halloween-decorated window of Sutter’s Pharmacy, where she had bought her first tube of mascara. And past Duds N Such, where she and her sisters had browsed through racks of jeans while her daddy salivated over John Deere mowers.
    With her old fuzzy slippers thumping softly against her heels, Hope continued down the street. Past the city park with its patchy grass that always needed more water and the small Catholic church that never quite caught on. Past Josephine’s Diner, the pink-painted caboose where Hope had worked for years, serving up chicken-fried steak.
    She didn’t slow down until she reached the one-story brick building located on the other side of the town hall, a building that was completely dark—except for one tiny square of light.
    The wind picked up, loosening a few strands of hair from her ponytail and rattling the chain against the town hall flagpole. A chill tiptoed down her spine, and she shivered. Given that she wore nothing but a skinny-strapped cami and thin cotton pajama bottoms in the middle of October, it wasn’t surprising. Except the goose bumps that covered her bare arms didn’t come from the outside temperature as much as from the cold