The Reunion
PRAISE FOR MEGHAN QUINN
The Wedding Game
“Readers won’t have to be reality TV fans to get a kick out of this fun, quirky rom-com.”
—Publishers Weekly
That Forever Girl
“A terrific read.”
—Once Upon a Book Blog
“A heart-tugging, slow-burning, second-chance romance . . . This is a couple that I couldn’t help but root for.”
—Red Cheeks Reads
“If you love small-town romances that are rich in scenery, packed with sweetness, heat, and fun, and [are] looking for an easy reading escape, look no further.”
—TotallyBookedBlog
“Filled with emotion, laughter, and loads of sexual tension . . . I dare you to not fall in love with Harper and Rogan!”
—Nightbird Novels
“Sweet, sassy, sexy, and sentimental.”
—Harlequin Junkie
“Second-chance enemies-to-lovers romance at its finest.”
—Bookishly Nerdy
“I’m a sucker for second-chance romances, and add in the small town and I’m hooked. And who better to give me all the feels with a little humor and a mix of sexiness than Meghan Quinn.”
—Embrace the Romance
That Second Chance
“With each book I read by Meghan Quinn, I become more in awe of her writing talent. She truly has a gift! That Second Chance was simply perfect!”
—Wrapped Up in Reading
“A sweet, sexy, swoon-worthy, MUST-READ romance from Meghan Quinn, and I would HIGHLY recommend it! I fell head over heels in love with the quaint and charming small town of Port Snow, Maine, and all of its residents.”
—The Romance Bibliophile
“I’m basking in the HEA goodness of That Second Chance, which gets five stars.”
—Dog-Eared Daydreams
“I adored the small town of Port Snow and the fabulous tight [bond] the Knightly family have not only with each other but their community as a whole.”
—Book Angel Booktopia
OTHER TITLES BY MEGHAN QUINN
All her books can be read on Kindle Unlimited
GETTING LUCKY SERIES
That Second Chance
That Forever Girl
That Secret Crush
That Swoony Feeling
BRENTWOOD BASEBALL BOYS
The Locker Room
The Dugout
The Lineup
The Trade
The Change Up
The Setup
The Strike Out
The Perfect Catch
MANHATTAN MILLIONAIRES
The Secret to Dating Your Best Friend’s Sister
Diary of a Bad Boy
Boss Man Bridegroom
THE DATING BY NUMBERS SERIES
Three Blind Dates
Two Wedding Crashers
One Baby Daddy
Back in the Game (novella)
THE BLUE LINE DUET
The Upside of Falling
The Downside of Love
THE PERFECT DUET
The Left Side of Perfect
The Right Side of Forever
THE BINGHAMTON BOYS SERIES
Co-Wrecker
My Best Friend’s Ex
Twisted Twosome
The Other Brother
STAND-ALONE TITLES
The Modern Gentleman
See Me After Class
The Romantic Pact
Dear Life
The Virgin Romance Novelist Chronicles
Newly Exposed
The Mother Road
The Highland Fling
The Wedding Game
BOX SET SERIES
The Bourbon series
The Love and Sports series
The Hot-Lanta series
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.
Text copyright © 2022 by Meghan Quinn
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: 9781542034982
ISBN-10: 1542034981
Cover design by Caroline Teagle Johnson
To all the nonperfect families that are actually perfect in their own way.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE FORD
CHAPTER TWO COOPER
CHAPTER THREE NORA
CHAPTER FOUR PALMER
CHAPTER FIVE COOPER
CHAPTER SIX PALMER
CHAPTER SEVEN DR. BEAU
CHAPTER EIGHT FORD
CHAPTER NINE PALMER
CHAPTER TEN COOPER
CHAPTER ELEVEN FORD
CHAPTER TWELVE LARKIN
CHAPTER THIRTEEN PALMER
CHAPTER FOURTEEN DR. BEAU
CHAPTER FIFTEEN COOPER
CHAPTER SIXTEEN FORD
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN COOPER
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN LARKIN
CHAPTER NINETEEN FORD
CHAPTER TWENTY DR. BEAU
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE PALMER
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO NORA
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE COOPER
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR FORD
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE PALMER
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX COOPER
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN LARKIN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT DR. BEAU
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE NORA
CHAPTER THIRTY FORD
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE LARKIN
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO PALMER
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE DR. BEAU
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR NORA
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE COOPER
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX FORD
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN FORD
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT COOPER
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE PALMER
CHAPTER FORTY LARKIN
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE DR. BEAU
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO NORA
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE FORD
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR PALMER
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE COOPER
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX FORD
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN COOPER
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT PALMER
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE FORD
CHAPTER FIFTY COOPER
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE FORD
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO PALMER
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE COOPER
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR LARKIN
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE DR. BEAU
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX NORA
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN LARKIN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT NORA
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE PALMER
CHAPTER SIXTY DR. BEAU
EPILOGUE FORD
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Preview: TURN THE PAGE FOR A SNEAK PEEK FROM THE SECRET TO DATING YOUR BEST FRIEND’S SISTER
PROLOGUE BRAM
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
TO: Family and Friends
FROM: Cooper Chance
SUBJECT: 50th Wedding Anniversary
You’re invited to celebrate the 50th wedding
Anniversary of Peggy and Martin.
Food and drinks.
Music.
Fun.
Party is at the original Watchful Wanderers store.
Sunday, June 2nd.
RSVP to Cooper Chance—just reply to this email
No presents.
TO: Cooper Chance
, Ford Chance
FROM: Palmer Chance
SUBJECT: Re: 50th Wedding Anniversary
Bro,
Please do not tell me you just sent a wedding anniversary invite through an email? Did that just happen?
Palmer—your not-so-happy sister
TO: Palmer Chance, Ford Chance
FROM: Cooper Chance
SUBJECT: I Did
TO: Cooper Chance, Ford Chance
FROM: Palmer Chance
SUBJECT: Re: I Did
You know I hate it when you respond in the subject line. It’s more work to delete the subject line and type in your response, than to just reply in the body of the email.
But ignoring that, what happened to the beautiful linen invites I picked out? You can’t just send an email for Mom and Dad’s 50th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY. We look so . . . uncultured.
TO: Palmer Chance, Ford Chance
FROM: Cooper Chance
SUBJECT: Re: I Did
The invites you wanted to purchase were going to be twelve dollars a pop. TWELVE dollars, Palmer. That’s a waste of money, a waste of resources, and just a useless way to kill more trees. Also, while you’re out galivanting around the world, who do you think was going to have to address all of those?
Me.
So, I did what was easiest. Sent an email. If you don’t like it, too bad.
TO: Cooper Chance, Ford Chance
FROM: Palmer Chance
SUBJECT: Re: I Did
You realize the family owns a multi-billion dollar, franchised, outdoors store, right? Twelve dollars an invite is a blip in the pool of gold Mom and Dad are sitting in. Now we look like cheap asses who send out a wedding anniversary invitation through email. You’re an editor, but you didn’t even beef up the text. You made bullet points.
Food.
Drinks.
Music.
Fun.
^^^ Yup, screams fun, Coop.
TO: Palmer Chance, Ford Chance
FROM: Cooper Chance
SUBJECT: Re: I Did
Once again, if you’re not here, you can’t have an opinion.
TO: Cooper Chance, Palmer Chance
FROM: Ford Chance
SUBJECT: Re: I did
Just catching up.
The invitation is less than ideal, especially for such a large and monumental event in our parents’ lives, parents who have given us every opportunity to succeed in life. I think we need to treat this anniversary with a little more appreciation and a little less complaining about the time and effort we have to put forth in order to make it happen.
I just spoke with Larkin and she is ordering the linen invites, having them shipped overnight, and we will have them sent out ASAP. We will treat the email as a funny save the date. I will reply all and tell everyone to expect a formal invitation in the mail.
Larkin and I will be flying out to Washington on Tuesday. We will be working up until the anniversary party on some very time-consuming tasks. Please be conscious of our time and energy.
I’ll be sure to have Larkin schedule in some meetings to go over all party arrangements as well as time with the family, but we won’t be staying with Mom and Dad. We booked two rooms at the Marina Island Bed and Breakfast, one being the attic suite so we can conduct business in private.
Please send your itineraries to Larkin and any requests so she can schedule them in.
Thank you.
Ford
CHAPTER ONE
FORD
“Larkin, did you get the invitations sent out?” I call from my desk as I type out a quick email to our head of marketing. I was supposed to receive mock-ups for our rebranding by end of day. It’s end of day, and there are no mock-ups.
“I did.” Larkin sweeps into my office, tablet in hand and blue light–blocking glasses perched on her nose. “They were sent out at lunchtime. The calligraphist did an impeccable job on the addresses. And as an added touch, I took one of the pictures from your parents’ recent photo shoot and made it into a stamp.”
I smile. “Did you make sure to send them one?” Larkin nods with a knowing glint in her eye. “They’ll get a kick out of that.”
“I also got word from your housekeeper that your bags are all packed, your suits are freshly pressed, and the remaining food in your fridge has been taken care of so nothing goes bad while you’re gone for the next month.”
“Great. And have you heard from marketing about the mock-ups? I drafted an email to ask where they are but thought I would check with you first.”
She clutches her tablet to her chest. “Yes, they brought them to me early this afternoon, but they were missing color swatches and a few other things I knew you would ask for, so I asked them for a redo. I told them I’d stay late to grab them so we can bring them with us on the trip tomorrow.”
“I can stay late—you don’t have to. I’m sure you have to go home and pack.”
“I woke up this morning and packed in preparation for late mock-ups.” She smiles, and I can’t help but shake my head.
Larkin Novak is one of a kind. I hired her four years ago, and I’ve given her significant pay raises every year just to keep her. She’s efficient, incredibly intelligent, vastly organized, and can anticipate what I’m going to need before I even know it. She’s such an integral part of this company and my day-to-day that I don’t know what I would do without her.
“Do you ever sleep, Larkin?”
She pushes her ice-blonde hair behind her ear. “Who needs sleep when there’s so much to do?”
“You need sleep.” I stand from my desk and walk up to her. Carefully, I take her precious tablet from her hands. “Go home. I’ll wait for the mock-ups.”
She eyes the tablet in my hand and then looks back up at me with those intensely blue eyes. “I get plenty of sleep. A solid eight hours every night.”
“Then you need a life. Go home.” I chuckle and walk past her to her desk, where I slip her tablet in her work bag, pick the bag up by the strap, and drape it over her shoulder. “Go, Larkin. We have a strenuous month ahead of us with the rebrand and the anniversary party. Have a second to yourself before you’re forced to be at your boss’s side for precisely every second of every day for twenty-nine days.”
The rebrand is the first business-altering project I’ve taken on since my dad retired, and I’m spending every waking hour working toward perfection—if there’s something I never want to do, it’s let my dad down, especially after everything he and my mom have done for me, for my siblings.
“You do paint an awful picture of what’s to come. If that’s the case, I’m going to go grab some dinner, which will be ice cream, and drown my sorrows in my one and only night to myself before I’m inserted into apparent hell on Marina Island.”
“Yeah.” I grip the back of my neck. “Are you prepared to be around my family? They can be a bit much.”
“You act as if I haven’t met them before.”
“But you haven’t been in the same space with all of them together.”
“Nervous I’ll quit after a week?”
“Yeah.” I let out a dry chuckle. “I am.” Folding my arms across my chest, I lean against the doorframe of my office and take a second to relax. I’m constantly wearing the CEO hat, and it can be exhausting after a while. Larkin and I have a good enough relationship that she knows when I need to “kick my shoes off” and take a second to breathe.
“It’s going to take more than your family to drive me away. You know I can’t find a benefits package quite like yours anywhere else.”
“Ah, the true reason you stick around,” I joke.
“You had me at four weeks’ paid vacation and bonus structure.” She lets out a familiar chuckle.
“At least I know what will keep you around now.” I sigh deeply. “Okay, I should finish up some work before we head out tomorrow.” I push off the doorframe and head back into my office.
“Can I order you anything for dinner before I leave?” she asks, tailing after
me.
I shake my head. “I have a protein bar in my desk drawer that’s been begging to be eaten all day.”
“Thrilling.” Her sarcasm seeps through, which it seems to do more often after hours. “I have a car coming to pick you up tomorrow, eight in the morning. I’ll have a breakfast burrito waiting for you.”
“You’re perfection. Thank you.” I wake up my computer by moving my mouse around. “See you in the morning.”
“Bye, Ford.” She takes off, and I turn to my computer, focusing on the emails in my in-box. The worst part of the job is sitting in front of me: answering questions from department heads. Oddly, I prefer the mundane tasks like numbers and projections, and I’m good at them.
So good at them that we’ll be opening fifty new stores in the coming year, which is the direct reason for the rebranding. We’ve stuck with the same storefront, color blend, and aesthetic ever since we franchised. Walking into one of our stores, you get a sense it’s slightly outdated, with its oak timber logs, forest-green linoleum floors, metal bracket shelving, mustard-yellow accents, and outdoor adventures from a photo shoot nearly fifteen years ago. The stores are successful, but they’re not capturing every consumer . . . like the young crowd. In order to keep up with the competition, which dominates the Gen Z market, we need to make sure we’re keeping the stores fresh. We have the funds to do so, but we need to make sure we have the right research and development in place to appeal to our customers and make them not just enjoy what they’re buying from Watchful Wanderers but to enjoy the experience as well.
Because if anything, the young crowd is always about the experience, something Larkin has been drilling into me since the moment we started the rebranding process.
After I’ve made a decent dent in my emails, my phone buzzes with a text message. Mom.
When I was seven and Cooper was five, our biological mom overdosed and our grandma became our legal guardian. We lived with her for a few months until she couldn’t physically take care of us anymore. At that point, we were placed into foster care. We bounced from house to house for a few more months until we met Peggy and Martin. The minute I met them, I knew—I knew we were going to be a family. I felt it in my soul. And after a year of living with them on Marina Island, a small island off the coast of Seattle, they sat us down and asked if we wanted to be a part of their family permanently.