Penny Sue Got Lucky. BEVERLY BARTON

      So this was Penny Sue Paine? Guardian to Lucky, the multi-millionaire dog?

      She stared at Vic with huge, chocolate-brown eyes fringed with thick, dark lashes. Her features were almost too perfect. Small, tip-tilted nose. Full luscious lips. Oval face. Flawless olive complexion. And a mane of dark, auburn-brown hair that flowed around her slender shoulders.

      And her body. Holy hell. The body was to-die-for. No more than five-four, with an hourglass shape. Tiny waist, rounded hips and high, full breasts.

      “Are you all right, Mr. Noble?” she asked.

      “Uh…yeah, I’m fine.”

      “Then perhaps we should get started. What would you like to do first?” Penny Sue asked.

      What would he like to do first?

      I’d like to make love to you, Miss Penny Sue. That’s what I’d like to do.

      Dear Reader,

      Like my heroine, Penny Sue Paine, I was born into a fairly typical Southern family, with predecessors ranging from highly respected doctors and wealthy landowners to a notorious outlaw who died on the gallows. And like Penny Sue, I am blessed with a group of marvelously eccentric relatives, a writer’s treasure trove of unique characters.

      Did I draw from real life to create Penny Sue and her family? You bet I did. Is any one character based on a real person? No, of course not. Doesn’t everyone have kinfolk who’ve squabbled over a sizable (and even a not-so-sizable) inheritance? I think most of us have relatives that we both love and hate, that we’re sometimes ashamed of and occasionally frustrated and angry with, but when push comes to shove, we stand by them when they need us. For a lot of us Southerners, that Scots-Irish clan mentality is an inherited trait. Without a doubt, there is a little bit of Penny Sue in me and many of my female cousins. From childhood, we were taught good manners, good taste and a strong sense of responsibility. We steel magnolias take care of our own.

      Warmest regards,

      Beverly Barton

      Penny Sue Got Lucky

      Beverly Barton

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      BEVERLY BARTON

      has been in love with romance since her grandfather gave her an illustrated book of Beauty and the Beast. An avid reader since childhood, Beverly wrote her first book at the age of nine. After marriage to her own “hero” and the births of her daughter and son, Beverly chose to be a full-time homemaker, aka wife, mother, friend and volunteer. The author of over thirty-five books, Beverly is a member of Romance Writers of America and helped found the Heart of Dixie chapter in Alabama. She has won numerous awards and has made the Waldenbooks and USA TODAY bestseller lists.

      To my cousins, Sue Elkins and Penny Von Boeckman.

      There is a little bit of Penny Sue in both of you, in me and in so many of our other female relatives, steel magnolias every one. Here’s to all true Southern belles, past, present and future. Sometimes gentleness is the greatest strength of all.

      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Epilogue

      Prologue

      Did you ever want to disown your entire family? I mean every last one of them. Or at the very least trade them in for another family? It’s not as if I don’t love them, although lately they’ve tried my patience almost to the breaking point. And I’m not an impatient person. Just ask anyone who knows me. Even my worst enemy—if I had one—would tell you that Penny Sue Paine has the patience of a saint. But I swear a saint would lose patience with this bunch. Of course, I’m not a saint, not by any stretch of the imagination. I am, however, a good person. I always— and I mean always—send thank-you notes. I give blood on a regular basis. I teach a Sunday-school class for preschoolers. I never wear white shoes after Labor Day or before Easter. I would not be caught dead in public without my makeup on and my hair fixed. I don’t curse. Unless you count saying “Lord have mercy!” as cursing. I never destroy anything of worth when I’m finally pushed to my limit and start breaking things. Except once—I accidently shoved my hand through the glass front door at Grandmother Paine’s house. Of course I was only three at the time and hadn’t learned to control my temper. And I do not throw hissy fits in public, which is no small feat, let me tell you, because the Paine women are known throughout the county for their royal hissy fits. Well, there was that one time when the Country Kettle was out of glazed carrots and I got a tad upset. After all, who ever heard of a restaurant that specializes in vegetable plates running out of carrots before the dinner crowd arrives? But I’m getting off the subject, aren’t I? I was explaining why I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with my family, wasn’t I? Aunt Lottie always said digression was one of my weaknesses.

      “Get to the point,” Aunt Lottie would say. “Stop digressing.” Then she’d glance over at Aunt Dottie and say, “It’s a weakness you inherited from her, the silly goose.”

      Aunt Dottie would giggle and reply, “I’m not a silly goose. I simply have an effervescent personality. And giving all the details when telling a story is a family trait I inherited from Daddy, so it has to be a good trait, doesn’t it, since Daddy was such a good man.”

      Aunt Lottie would roll her eyes and mumble something unintelligible.

      God love ’em both. Lottie was the elder twin, born five whole minutes before Dottie. Although they were identical, no one had ever mistaken one for the other. Grandmother Paine never dressed them alike, not even as toddlers, which set a precedent in their lives, allowing them to be individuals. Lottie was the brains, Dottie the beauty. Lottie was serious-minded, Dottie was frivolous. Lottie took a nice little inheritance from her parents and turned it into millions by making shrewd investments. On the other hand, what money Dottie didn’t spend on clothes, cars, fancy vacations and cosmetic surgery, she lost to a conniving swindler who stole not only her money but her heart. So, in their old age, Lottie financially supported her younger sister.

      Oh, dear me. I’m digressing again.

      Back to the current situation with my family.

      I suppose the problem began when Aunt Lottie passed away. Well, actually, the problem began when Uncle Willie—that’s Wilfred Hopkins, Aunt Lottie’s lawyer, who isn’t actually a blood relative—read the will. His wife, Aunt Pattie, is dog-tail kin to us, of course, her mother having been a first cousin to Grandmother Paine. And in case you don’t know what dog-tail kin is—it’s when you’re distantly related, enough so that if you had a mind to, you could actually marry each other. That is if one was a man and the other a woman.

      But as I said, the will is what caused the problem. We were assembled in the front parlor of Aunt Lottie’s Victorian house on First Street—Aunt Dottie, Uncle Douglas, all the cousins and me—when Uncle Willie dropped the bombshell. Even I was surprised, but I shouldn’t have been. After all, I knew better than anyone how much