Love...Maybe: The Must-Have Eshort Collection

Love…Maybe An Ebook Short Story Collection
Written by: Gill Paul Claudia Carroll Beth Thomas Debbie Johnson Ella Harper Julia Williams Catherine Ferguson Kat French Fiona Gibson

Copyright

Avon

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2015

We Sink or Swim Together © Gill Paul 2015 Single, Forty and Fabulous © Claudia Carroll 2015 An Unforgettable Proposal © Beth Thomas 2015 The Love Potion © Marnie Riches 2015 The Mysterious Case of Cupid and the Drag Queen © Debbie Johnson 2015 Snow on Valentine’s Day © Ella Harper 2015 A Brief Encounter © Julia Williams 2015 Saving Miranda © Catherine Ferguson 2015 The Stained Glass Heart © Kat French 2015 The Valentine Free Zone © Fiona Gibson 2015

The authors assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © February 2015 ISBN: 9780008136529

Version: 2015–03–03

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

We Sink or Swim Together

Single, Forty and Fabulous

An Unforgettable Proposal

The Love Potion

The Mysterious Case of Cupid and the Drag Queen

Snow on Valentine’s Day

A Brief Encounter

Saving Miranda

The Stained Glass Heart

The Valentine Free Zone

About the Publisher

GILL PAUL
We Sink or Swim Together The Weepy One

Copyright

Avon

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2015

Copyright © Gill Paul 2015

Gill Paul asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © February 2015 ISBN: 9780008136116

Version: 2015–03–03

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

We Sink or Swim Together

Keep Reading

About the Author

We Sink or Swim Together

Gerda stood on deck to watch the view as the Lusitania steamed down the Hudson River, coloured flags streaming from the masts and a choir singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’. She had lived in Brooklyn for five years but had only travelled into Manhattan a handful of times and had just seen the brand new buildings thrusting up into the clouds – ‘skyscrapers’, they called them – from a distance. She especially loved the Woolworth building, said to be the tallest in the world, its windows glinting in early afternoon sunshine on this fresh spring day. As the ship passed the harbour bar, she could smell the ocean. She knew rivers and sea mingled here because not far up the East River she liked to swim in a floating pool, where the water had a slightly salty flavour.

Gerda had mixed emotions about the trip: she longed to see her sister Thomasine and meet her new niece and nephew, to feel part of a family again, but at the same time she dreaded those familiar questions – ‘Is there not a beau? Someone special perhaps?’ – and the sense of failure they induced. At the age of twenty-nine, she was firmly ‘on the shelf’ and had no idea why it had turned out that way because, she yearned for a husband, someone to love who would stop her feeling so alone. She was pretty enough, with blonde, blue-eyed, Norwegian looks from the country of her birth; she was a talented seamstress who dressed well, given her limited means; and she lived in a respectable house, with no slur on her good name. She met gentlemen from time to time – nice gentlemen, with decent jobs – and they called on her for a while and then stopped, either saying they were ‘too busy’ or simply drifting away without explanation.

‘You’re too direct,’ her friend Charlotte told her. ‘You come across as too keen.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. How do I act differently from anyone else?’ She’d watched other girls, noted their jocular repartee, their bright smiles, the hand placed lightly on a man’s forearm, and she tried her best to emulate them, though it made her feel false.

‘Do you remember when Mr Taylor, the jeweller, began to call on you? You barely knew him and yet you asked about the extent of the accommodation above his shop, as if you were interviewing a potential husband.’