Love Locked In (Holiday Ridge: Lock #1)

Chapter 1

one

. . .

Maggie

With my résumé, you’d think I was the queen of love.

Not only am I a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of the most delicious romance books out there, but I also have a Netflix series and two movies that have been made from my stories in my short eight-year career.

Every single book I release hits number one in all romance categories on , and people inhale my words.

My female main characters are real, they’re fierce, and they make my readers feel like they’re looking at themselves.

My male main characters? Shit, not only are they morally gray, ready to burn the world down for their loves, but they all have filthy-ass mouths with thick, nine-inch cocks.

Basically, what all women want.

I love love. I love writing a happily-ever-after once my love interests have gone through such shit to get to each other.

I love the high it gives me, the smile it brings to my face, and the love I get from my readers when they read my words and fall so desperately in love with what I’ve written.

It’s the best feeling in the world. One I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for my mom and dad.

From a young age, I knew there was something different about my parents’ love.

They were neighbors and grew up together here in Holiday Ridge, Vermont.

Not a day went by that they weren’t arguing in the front yard over anything and everything.

My mom would break Dad’s hockey sticks, while my dad used my mom’s books as pucks.

In high school, they tried to one-up the other in everything. If my mom got a 98, my dad would get a 100. If my dad ate two pizzas, my mom was eating three. She hid his gear; he’d hide her book bag. It was insane.

Until my mom started dating my dad’s teammate.

Dad lost his mind and decided he was done with the bullshit.

He kissed my mom in the middle of a pep rally, in front of the whole school.

With tongue, as my dad loves to tell anyone who will listen.

While she did kick him in the nuts, and he got a black eye from her boyfriend, Mom said she couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss.

About the man who was not only the love of her life, but her future daughters’ dad.

The rest is history.

They got married a week after high school, and Dad was drafted to the Nashville Assassins a couple weeks after that.

They weren’t even married a year before they started having kids.

I am one of five—the middle—with Willa and Sadie above me and Blake and Opal below me.

My parents not only gave us built-in best friends but gave us a damn good childhood, along with the best example of love.

So, I should be a pro, right?

Not even kinda.

Not only did I marry my high school sweetheart, the first Welch daughter to get married, but I was also the first to get divorced.

Jason was a rookie with the Blackhawks, I was getting my degree in English Lit, and I thought we were in love.

I mean, I was, but he wasn’t. My marriage didn’t even last three years before he decided he wished he would have experimented more instead of marrying the girl he lost his virginity to.

It broke my heart since he was supposed to be what my dad was to my mom.

But as my mom told me, “Just means there is someone else out there for you.”

Where is he?

I have been through nothing but gaslighters after narcissists after momma’s boys.

I know that sports romance is a hell of a genre, but hockey guys?

In my opinion, they fucking suck. I have yet to meet one who loves and is loyal to me like my dad has been to my mom.

Or hell, anyone we know from the Assassins.

All the people I grew up with from the Nashville Assassins are married, and to hockey players, yet…

the guys from my favorite sport have not been kind to me.

It’s unfair, honestly.

Which leads me to the next part of my résumé that should indicate I’m great at love. I own a bookshop, Promise Pond Books, which is located right across from Promise Pond. I know you’re thinking, why does that matter? It’s just a pond. Well, let me tell you.

The spot where I write, a little nook in front of the main window that I’ve blocked off with bookshelves, overlooks the old front entrance gate that leads to Promise Pond.

Promise Pond used to be Welch Pond when my grandpa owned it, but when it was passed to my dad, he and my mom hung a lock on the gate with their initials and the date they wanted to come back home to retire.

At the time, it was just a promise to each other.

But when they returned, not only was the gate covered in locks, but each one held different dates, initials, and promises.

Hence, why it’s called Promise Pond now.

People come from all over to hang their locks, to make a promise to their loved ones or themselves.

A sign on the gate explains that you have to come back for your lock before the next Lock Night.

It happens every year on New Year’s Eve.

On that night, the locks that are left behind, Dad goes through and cuts.

What started as just a promise between my parents has turned into a huge tourist attraction for the town of Holiday Ridge.

My dad used to be able to cut all the locks every Lock Night by himself.

Now, though, we all have to help because there are so many.

Each lock has a story, a promise, and I have a front-row seat to watch people come through hand in hand to hang their locks.

They are flushed with love, excitement, and the hope of a love of a lifetime.

I get to watch it all.

While writing my love stories.

Being so lonely it’s not even funny.

“Maggie, love.”

I look back just as the door to my nook opens, and my mom pops her head in.

Mary Ann Welch is the epitome of beauty and grace.

While she was a tomboy growing up, years as an NHL wife have made my mom a baddie.

I take great pride in the fact that people say I’m her twin.

She has a chic blond bob, the streaks of gray through it the only indicator of her age.

My hair is down my back, but that’s only because I look like Lord Farquaad with a bob, whereas she looks like a damn queen.

My blond hair is also dyed a peachy pink that my dad is not a fan of, but he won’t say that to my face.

While Mom is thin, I’m curvier since I have an unhealthy obsession with eating candy when I’m writing.

We share aquamarine eyes, while my sisters have bright blue like my dad.

She’s not only my mom, but my best friend.

“Yeah?”

She gives me a sheepish look. “I’m sorry to bother you, but can you help me with the ladder? I need that special edition of Twilight off the top shelf, and I’m not in the mood to fall to my death today.”

I snort. “So you’d rather risk your favorite daughter?”

She grins, her eyes bright and teasing. “You’ll get right on up. I, on the other hand, will have to skip Tuesday night with your dad.”

I promptly gag, which she cackles at. I am all for a healthy sex life for later-in-life adults, but I just don’t want to hear about my parents’ sex life. “Mom, we all know it’s more than just Tuesday.”

She flashes me a grin. “All days that end in Y,” she admits with a wink, and once more, I gag, much to her pleasure.

Her laughter follows me out of the little nook and into the wide-open floor of Promise Pond Books.

The shop has a very girlie aesthetic, with bright-white built-in bookcases lining every exposed wall.

On each shelf are not only books but also different knickknacks that make us happy.

Silly signs that say stuff about needing a Diet Coke.

How book boyfriends are better than real boyfriends.

Naked molds of men and women, and anything else that makes us happy when we see it.

It’s easy to say that when we go to Plattsburgh, we are hitting T.J.Maxx and Marshalls like wild women.

Which is probably why Dad only takes us once a year…

My dad bought the bookshop for my mom when they moved back after years away in Nashville, and he jokes she loves books more than him. I don’t remember a moment in my life when my mom didn’t have some kind of paperback close at hand, so it only makes sense that she’d have a store.

Since she gave me my love of books and writing, when I came back from college, it was obvious that we’d become partners in the shop.

I know my sisters get jealous of how close Mom and I are, but I don’t care.

I’m the middle child; I was ignored most of my life because I had my nose stuck in a book, living in a fantasy world rather than the real world like my sisters.

They took up all my parents’ time growing up, so it’s my turn.

I move past one of the many circular white tables that are covered in the books we’re featuring, along with more bookish knickknacks, and I smile at the customer waiting.

“Hey, Jamie. Finally getting it!” I exclaim, excited for her. Jamie has been working at Harrison’s Skate & Paddle to earn money for this special edition set of Twilight. She’s been saving all summer and winter to get it. She squeals with excitement, and I do the same.

“I am so ready!”

“I bet.”

I wiggle the ladder that is the reason my mom came to get me, and I notice it’s stuck on the rug.

Freeing it, I move the ladder into position before climbing up to the top, where we keep our special edition sets.

This one is a first edition from when the full Twilight series initially came out.

It’s still in the original packaging, a lucky find when we went estate sale shopping.

It was just for decoration, but when Jamie came in and oohed and aahed over it, we gave her a price, and she was set on buying it.

She doesn’t know it, but we planned on just giving it to her.

We wanted to teach her how to save, and this was the perfect opportunity. A book set like this is meant to be treasured by another book lover. Jamie is that book lover. While I can feel her excitement now, I know it’s going to be even better when she learns the book set is hers free of charge.

This is my favorite part of being an author and store owner. I can bring happiness to so many.

I wish I could bring happiness to myself—not that I’m not happy. I love my life, my family, and my little apartment upstairs, but I want someone to share it with.

I want the love of my life.

I don’t know why I’m being so hard on myself.

I haven’t had a boyfriend in years. Yeah, I’ve hooked up with tourists, but nothing has stuck.

That’s fine, I guess. I don’t know. I think because Valentine’s Day is coming up, I’m being whiny.

I shouldn’t be. It isn’t like I’m the only single person in the family.

Opal is still broken up over the boyfriend who dumped her on Lock Night five years ago.

Sadie is too busy for a man, and so is Blake.

Either would have to be chased and for someone to make it worth their while for them to settle down.

Bless Willa’s heart, but her husband passed over five years ago, so she’s alone again.

I should throw a Galentine’s Day party for us, so we don’t have to see our parents gush over each other.

That’s not a bad idea.

I’m just about to reach for the set, and maybe I’m shaking with excitement, because suddenly, the ladder jerks to the left.

I squeal and I hear my mom call out to be careful, but I have no chance.

It’s as if it happens in slow motion. I circle my arms as I try to right myself.

It doesn’t help, so I try to grab the shelf for purchase.

Instead, I accidentally grab the girth of a stone sculpture of a cock.

Which is attached to nothing but a pair of stone balls.

Next thing I know, I’m falling to my death.

And as the world goes black, I can’t help but think that, once more, a dick has let me down.