Liberty Bay Read online

  Liberty Bay

  Synopsis

  Wren Lindley loves her low-tech life far off the grid near the small Pacific Northwest town of Poulsbo, Washington. Her world is untouched by the latest anything until the day social media star Gina arrives to help her market her horse farm…and brings an unexpected and irresistible electricity into Wren’s life.

  Influencer Gina Strickland always has her focus forward, toward the hottest trend and the newest way to make a splash. Her glamorous on-screen persona has made her a success, but when her real identity is leaked and threats ensue, she needs a temporary hideout. Wren’s isolated farm sounds like the perfect refuge until Gina discovers just how far off the grid it really is. With this much downtime, how is she supposed to distract herself from the sparks flying between her and tantalizing Wren?

  On the shores of Liberty Bay, far from the buzz of social media feeds, can Wren and Gina find a way to forge a real-world connection?

  Praise for Karis Walsh

  Sit. Stay. Love.

  “A cute and fun romance set in a small town. Great main characters that are easily relatable.”—Kat Adams, Bookseller (QBD Books, Australia)

  “This is a sweet romance about two lovely people growing together and falling in love as they help the people and animals around them.”—Rainbow Reflections

  “This is an easy romance to read. It’s not overly fraught with angst, but there is some light drama to keep the plot moving forward. The obligatory separation of the leads near the end of the book didn’t feel eye-roll worthy, because, though dramatic, it was set up almost from the beginning of the book. I loved the characters, pacing and plot of this book. Very recommended.”—Colleen Corgel, Librarian, Queens Public Library

  Love on Lavender Lane

  “Gentle romance, excellent chemistry and low angst…The two MCs are well defined and well written. Their interactions and dialogue are great fun. The whole atmosphere of the lavender farm is excellently evoked.”—reviewer@large

  Love on Lavender Lane “was very nearly my perfect romance novel. Lovely human beings for main characters who had fantastic chemistry, great humor that kept me smiling—and even laughing—throughout, and just enough angst to make me feel it in the heart. And a cute doggie, too!”—C-Spot Reviews

  Seascape

  “When I think of Karis Walsh novels, the two aspects that distinguish them from those of many authors are the interactions of the characters with their environment, both the scenery and the plants and animals that live in it. This book has all of that in abundance.”—The Good, the Bad and the Unread

  Set the Stage

  “I really adored this book. From the characters to the setting and the slow burn romance, I was in it for the long haul with this one. Karis Walsh to me is an expert in creating interesting characters that often have to face some type of adversity. While this book was no different, it felt like the author changed up her game a bit. There was something new, something fresh about this book from Walsh.”—Romantic Reader Blog

  “Both leads were well developed and you could see them grow as characters throughout the novel. They also had great chemistry. This slow burn romance made a great summer read.”—Melina Bickard, Librarian, Waterloo Library (UK)

  Amounting to Nothing

  “As always with Karis Walsh’s books, the characters are well drawn and the inter-relationships well developed.”—Lesbian Reading Room

  Tales from Sea Glass Inn

  “Tales from Sea Glass Inn is a lovely collection of stories about the women who visit the Inn and the relationships that they form with each other.”—Inked Rainbow Reads

  Blindsided

  “Their slow-burn romance is a nuanced exploration of trust, desire, and negotiating boundaries, without a hint of schmaltz or pity. The sex scenes are sizzling hot, but it’s the slow burn that really allows Walsh to shine…the deft dialogue and well-written characters make this a winner.”—Publishers Weekly

  “This is definitely a good read, and it’s a good introduction to Karis Walsh and her books. The romance is good, the sex is hot, the dogs are endearing, and you finish the book feeling good. Why wouldn’t you want all that?”—Lesbian Review

  Liberty Bay

  Brought to you by

  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  Liberty Bay

  © 2021 By Karis Walsh. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-63555-817-3

  This Electronic Original Is Published By

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, NY 12185

  First Edition: January 2021

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Ruth Sternglantz

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design by Tammy Seidick

  eBook Design by Toni Whitaker

  By the Author

  Harmony

  Worth the Risk

  Sea Glass Inn

  Improvisation

  Mounting Danger

  Wingspan

  Blindsided

  Mounting Evidence

  Love on Tap

  Tales from Sea Glass Inn

  Amounting to Nothing

  You Make Me Tremble

  Set the Stage

  Seascape

  Love on Lavender Lane

  Sit. Stay. Love.

  Liberty Bay

  Chapter One

  Gina Strickland used her fork to push the sliced strawberries on her plate into an even, bright red arc that framed the slice of vegetable quiche. The meal seemed to her to be a boring subject for a photo—even though it smelled delicious—but she took the obligatory picture of the food before she started eating. All around her, at over a dozen round tables in the department store’s meeting room, the other diners were doing the exact same thing.

  Conversations faded as the lunch attendees concentrated on devouring the meal, but the room was far from silent. Constant pings and chimes from all the phones in the room—Gina’s included—provided an auditory backdrop to the more sporadic scrapes of utensils against china. Gina appreciated the reprieve from small talk as she focused both on the quiche and on the exhausting mental comparison of everyone’s notifications. The sounds could mean anything from new followers to page views to emails from friends, but influencing was a numbers game at heart, and she was relieved to hear that she was holding her own.

  There were a few heavy hitters in the room, as well as some new names, but most of the guests invited to this PR reception for one of Seattle’s large downtown department stores were micro-influencers like Gina. She was on the higher end of the spectrum, hovering in the space where the micro modifier could potentially be dropped and always hoping for the next viral story that would raise her viewership over the five hundred thousand mark, though her income was still inconsistent and not something she could take for granted yet. As much as these events made her uncomfortable, she was not about to turn down the chance to make some new connections and to vie for sponsorships. Not to mention the free lunch.

  After the meal and presentation were finished, she wandered around the room along with her peers, taking pictures of the various products being showcased
by the store. She was sure everyone was feeling the same pressure to take their nearly identical photos of uninspired quiche, kitchen appliances, and designer jeans and turn them magically into a unique photo story that would draw page views like a magnet. In between camera shots, she carried on what felt to her like intimate conversations with people she barely knew. Even though she was starting to make a very successful career out of her lifestyle blogs and posts, she still felt a jolt of surprise when near strangers approached her and started chatting about her wardrobe or the choice of lamps she had chosen for her bedroom.

  She had made the decision to invite the internet into her life, so complaints or the response That’s none of your business weren’t options for her. Still, for someone who felt awkward talking with other people about even innocuous topics such as the weather, such leaps into personal territory often made her uncomfortable. She interacted with thousands of people on social media platforms on a daily basis, and she had plenty of opportunities to turn those interactions into friendships or romantic relationships, but she still hadn’t figured out how to cope with the way relationships that started online leaped with dizzying speed into familiarity when they transferred to real life. She preferred to keep her close friendships safely in the virtual world while holding part of herself at a distance when in person.

  Gina took a picture of a pair of shoes in a horrid shade of green, then immediately deleted it since it would never find its way onto any of her social media sites. Once she had built her following just a little more, pushing herself into consistent six-figure views, she would be able to rely less on these mass receptions. She would be invited to more personal lunches with PR representatives and would be able to tailor sponsorships so they aligned even more closely with her interests and tastes than they did now. She didn’t think the conversations would be any less uncomfortable at those one-on-one meetings than they were in these large groups, but the opportunities for monetizing her platforms would expand.

  Once the reception ended, she caught a bus just outside the store for the short trip back to her apartment, wedging the unexpectedly bulky PR gifts between her knees and the seat in front of her. The comforter would be a beautiful addition to her bedroom, which was the next room in line to be decorated. The designer handbag, with its numerous buckles and logos, was not her style at all, but it would make a great giveaway item for her viewers.

  She leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes during the ride, soothed by the alerts from her phone, which were coming more and more frequently now—one or more of her posts must be blowing up today. As much as she was relieved to be out of the reception room and away from all the people and necessary chatting, she was grateful for the swag and for the increased revenue she was going to gain after connecting with the PR representative during their brief interchange before the meal. Not a bad reward for a mere two hours of her time and a measly five-minute bus ride from her home.

  ✥ ✥ ✥

  Gina moved the black feather half an inch to the left, nestling it more deeply in a fold of silky white fabric. She stood and peered through the viewfinder again. Perfect. She took several shots before she was satisfied with the composition of her photo, and then she swiftly dismantled the scene she had spent over an hour planning and tweaking. The feather and pale blue glass beads were stowed in their appropriate tiny drawers in the cabinet she had bought for less than ten dollars at a garage sale and refinished until it looked worth many times that amount, all thoroughly documented as the inspiration for her series of videos on home decorating on a strict budget. She put her favorite cinnamon and honey scented candle back on the matching bookshelf—project number two in the same series—and set the book which had been the focal point of her picture on her bedside table. She folded the backdrop cloth and decorative swatches of antique lace and tucked them into a plastic bin with a tight-fitting cover meant to keep her hoard of beautiful fabric protected and from turning into a mess of strings and tatters. She had learned that lesson the hard way, when she hadn’t bothered to tidy up after a shoot and had snagged a vintage piece of brocade with her vacuum cleaner where it lay forgotten on the floor.

  Her phone was still sending nearly constant—and nearly irresistible—alerts her way, but she forced herself to ignore it until her work was done. She had five photo stories to edit and upload before she would allow herself to be distracted by messages and viewer comments, no matter how tempting and numerous they sounded. Plus, she usually found these extended photo sessions to be a good way to decompress after the stress of spending an afternoon at a real-life social event. The work calmed her and reminded her why she loved her career, with its creative challenges and opportunities for connecting with her followers.

  She poured a cup of strong Assam tea and sat at her kitchen table where her laptop, paper-filled binders, and overflowing planner took up most of the space. She downloaded the day’s shots and worked through the pictures one by one. The book she was reading. The ingredients for her healthy morning smoothie. Her weekly planner spread and her monthly budget template. A set of close-ups of flowers and leaves for a post about city living on a new platform she was trying called Unify. She ignored the twinge of guilt she felt because her city-nature walk had really been nothing more than the quick trip home from the bus stop, as she had struggled to snap some suitable pictures while keeping the comforter and purse from touching the ground. And after twenty irritable minutes spent wrangling rolling berries and discolored banana slices this morning, she had tossed her lovely smoothie ingredients into the fridge and instead had eaten a bowl of Lucky Charms for breakfast. She tried to keep her content genuine, but some days, her real life demanded easier, less photogenic choices. Still, chipped bowls of sugary cereal weren’t going to get as many views as artistically arranged rainbows of fruits and greens.

  She shifted in her chair and bumped the card table with her knee, sloshing tea out of her mug and onto her pile of to-do lists. She swore quietly, mopping up the liquid with the sleeve of her sweatshirt and spreading the pages out on the table to dry. She pulled off the damp shirt and tossed it in the general direction of her bedroom, finishing her adjustments to color saturation in a sports bra. Once she was done, she made a note on one of her lists to look for a cheap but sturdy desk. She chewed on the end of her pen and watched the ink bleed on the damp paper before adding a list of other topics that could turn the hunt for a desk into a few months’ worth of blogs about setting up and running a home office.

  She glanced around her apartment, looking for inspiration. She concentrated most of her decorating efforts and furniture budget on one area at a time, and only filmed in those completed locations, giving her apartment a blotchy effect as some parts were fit for a magazine photo shoot while other spaces—such as where she ate and worked—had a flimsy, temporary feel. When she started fixing up a zone, she had to make it earn its keep. No small detail, from choosing a paint color to stenciling a rustic wooden picture frame, was completed unless it had a photo spread, DIY video, or blog post to go along with it.

  Luckily, her apartment was small enough—and cheap enough—to give her hope that she would eventually finish decorating the entire place. If she had a higher rent to pay, she’d have even smaller zones of beauty and tranquility than she had now, since she refused to use more than a few sponsored products in each one. She wanted her posts to resonate with her viewers, and most of them were on a budget and didn’t have stores handing them free merchandise. Gina would rather slowly make the space her own, sharing her inspiration and methods with her followers, rather than turning it into an imitation of a department store showroom. She appreciated the pockets of charm in her home because they reflected who she was.

  When she had first come to Seattle, she had toured apartment buildings with rents comparable to mortgage payments for large homes on acreage in her old hometown near Moses Lake, in eastern Washington. She had vowed she was never—never—going back there, no matter how cheap the cost of living, even
if she had to resort to sharing a studio apartment with cockroaches and three roommates. It hadn’t come to that, though, since the new online connections she was forming while she stayed in a musty hotel on the outskirts of the city brought her to this early 1900 Craftsman with its tiny back wing and private entrance. The space had been a blank canvas when she moved in, and she had started making it her own by decorating the living room. She had posted a few photos of her progress on Instagram on a whim, never expecting viewers to flock to her site by the hundreds. By the time she had put the finishing touches on the room, those numbers were in the thousands, and her side hobby had become her full-time job.

  Gina and the owners of the house were on friendly enough terms to wave and say hello, but not enough to invite each other over for meals or chitchat, which suited her quite well. Beacon Hill was far enough from the trendier neighborhoods to be somewhat affordable, yet close enough to downtown for her to have easy access whenever she needed to attend one of her frequent PR events. The heterogenous mix of people living around her gave Gina the anonymity and variety she craved from daily life in a big city, while the relationships she had formed with sponsors had helped connect her online presence to the city.

  Her phone continued to ping, insistent in its attempts to keep her from work. Her schedule was as compartmentalized as her home, though, and filming and uploading always came before social time. Her priority was paying for her life in Seattle. Enjoying that life had to come second. She pushed her phone farther away and opened one of her thick binders instead, pulling out her notes from a recent visit to a new local Vietnamese restaurant and writing a review for her Living and Eating in Beacon Hill blog. Once it was posted, she sketched out a script for a video she planned to film for her urban lifestyle channel on creating a natural sanctuary in small city gardens. Gina loved sitting in gardens and hated digging in them, but luckily, her landlord had a beautiful yard complete with vegetables, newly budding fruit trees, and colorful spring tulips. An ornate wrought iron bench would make a perfect place for filming the urban retreat. Gina mentally reviewed the way she planned to decorate it with throw pillows and a tray of coffee and croissants as she finally reached for her phone.