Read Flipped! (Spinning Hills Romance 1) for Free Online Page B

worked together in the infamous Hangar 18 of Roswell fame. The people of Spinning Hills loved themselves an outrageous tale, and one of the quirkiest around was that experimenting on aliens had been too much for Rosa, a devout Catholic who didn’t want to put her mad administrative skills to use on managing the dissecting of aliens.
    How the three women had ever stopped respectfully disagreeing long enough to decide to go into business together was a mystery to everyone. The one thing they seemed to agree on was that great coffee, sweets, and plenty of unsolicited advice could make any situation better.
    “Your mother babysat him until he was five, you know.” Grandma Ruby looked at her a moment later. “She used to bring him in for fruitcake. It was his favorite.”
    Holly tried to imagine her late mother working as a babysitter and Dan Amador as a little boy. Both were difficult to imagine. “Is he as . . . hard as he looks?” Holly asked.
    “Sweetie, we’re too old to know him that well.” Sherry laughed.
    “That’s not what I meant!” Holly’s cheeks flamed. The three women laughed harder.
    “Now, back to the house . . .” her grandmother began.
    The urge to bang her head on the table told Holly it was time to leave.
    That evening, she missed running into Dan by less than a minute. His front door slammed shut just as she and Ella were entering their apartment.
    Ella hadn’t taken the news of losing the house well, and it was no wonder. They had gone window-shopping for furniture for the house the week before. Ella had picked out new, big-kid furniture for her room and paint colors for her walls. She’d told her mother, through tears and a quivering bottom lip, that it was okay. That had hurt Holly most of all.
    Why had she thought it would be a fun activity to spend hours dreaming about the house next door with her daughter? Ways to mess with your daughter’s heart. Parenting 101, by Holly Bell.
    Ella climbed onto the sofa to look out the window and see the new owner of the house next door. Stanley stood on his hind legs next to her, his paws on the window. At the moment, he looked more like a monkey than a dog. “Mommy, is that the man who bought our house?”
    “That’s him.” Holly stood behind Ella and Stanley and looked out the window, too. Dan Amador was standing in front of the house next door. His nephew, Jake, was in his arms.
    “He looks nice, like . . . Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid ,” Ella observed, her little finger pressed on the window, right on Dan’s face. “We can have a tea party with him.”
    Nice? Like Prince Eric? Beast was more like it. Holly closed her eyes. How she hated fairy tales. And pastel colors. And poufy dresses. She and Ella were so different. “Um, I don’t think he likes tea.”
    “I’ll open the window and ask him.”
    Holly covered the window latch with her hand. “That’s not a good idea.” Stanley barked.
    “Why not? Uncle Johnny likes tea, and you said he’s Uncle Johnny’s brother.”
    “The thing is—he isn’t like Johnny. Grandma Ruby said that he has a good soul, but a hard heart.”
    “Like Beast?”
    Holly had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. “Uh, yeah, like Beast.” She kissed the top of Ella’s curly blond head and carried her down from the sofa. How could she keep Ella from trying to reform “Beast” if they ran into him on the street? “We only have people we’re sure are nice over for tea, and Dan Amador can be a little mean.”
    “How mean?” Ella folded her arms across her chest.
    He’d manhandled her and called her a lunatic numerous times, he’d been callous about her predicament Friday night, he’d mocked her when she’d told him she was a nose, and she’d seen the way he was looking around her studio. “Remember that blister you got on your ankle after ice-skating?”
    Ella bobbed her head, her eyes widening.
    “Well, imagine that blister on your keister and imagine sitting on it. That’s how mean