THE HERO OF HOPE SPRINGS (Gold Valley Book #10) by Maisey Yates is the emotional contemporary romance I have been waiting for in this Gold Valley series featuring two of my favorite characters. This book can be read as a standalone romance because it is a complete HEA, but all the family members continue to mature and change throughout the series.
Ryder Daniels has been the rock of his family ever since the death of his parents when he was only eighteen years old. He has kept the family ranch going and raised his younger siblings with the help of his sister, Iris. His days are dark as he deals with the grief of his siblings and the death of his dreams until he follows trail of sugar cubes, and suddenly there is sunshine in his life once again.
Samantha “Sammy” Marshall comes from a physically abusive home, and she escapes to watch the family of siblings on the ranch that is below her camper. She wants to be a part of a real family and leaves a trail of sugar cubes to see if Ryder will let her stay.
For seventeen years Ryder and Sammy have been friends and confidants, until Sammy decides her life is stagnant and she believes having a baby will change it. Ryder is not looking to be a father after raising his siblings, but he also will not let someone else have that type of connection to Sammy.
Can Ryder prove to Sammy that he truly loves her, and their relationship isn’t just from a sense of duty, and can Sammy let go of her fear of letting anyone all the way in after living through her parents’ abusive relationship?
I have been waiting for this relationship in the series and I was not disappointed. This is a very in depth and emotional look into both characters’ pasts and then the changes that becoming a couple brings. Best friends to lovers is a difficult road for both. This is a romance plot based more around internal changes and revelations and dialogue than any outside forces. The sex scenes are intimate and explicit, but not gratuitous. This is an intense and heartfelt coming together of two characters that I believe have always belonged together.
I always enjoy my return trips to Gold Valley!
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About the Author
New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Maisey Yates lives in rural Oregon with her three children and her husband, whose chiseled jaw and arresting features continue to make her swoon. She feels the epic trek she takes several times a day from her office to her coffee maker is a true example of her pioneer spirit.
In 2009, at the age of twenty-three Maisey sold her first book. Since then it’s been a whirlwind of sexy alpha males and happily ever afters, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Maisey divides her writing time between dark, passionate category romances set just about everywhere on earth and light sexy contemporary romances set practically in her back yard. She believes that she clearly has the best job in the world.
IN THE KEY OF FAMILY (Home to Oak Hollow Book #2) by Makenna Lee is another wonderful small-town contemporary romance featuring a small town police officer and a big city free spirit in the Home to Oak Hollow series. This second book in the series can easily be read as a romance standalone with a complete HEA, but there is character carryover from book one.
Alexandra “Alex” Roth is waiting to hear if she will get her dream job as a music therapist in a prestigious Manhattan school. As she waits, she takes a trip to the small town of Oak Hollow where her father and mother met twenty-five years ago to see if she can meet any of her relatives who know nothing about her existence. When she arrives, she finds she will be staying with a police officer from the town and his young orphaned autistic nephew.
Officer Luke Walker is shocked when the roommate who shows up is a woman. With nowhere else for her to go, he makes room for her to stay with him and his nephew, Cody. Luke is surprised how well Alex deals with his nephew after a few bumps in the road and Cody believes Alex is Mary Poppins. Luke is as infatuated as Cody and starts to want more than a roommate and the feeling is mutual. They decide to have a relationship for just the month before Alex returns to NY.
Alex, Cody, and Luke become a trio for the month, but their feelings turn to love. Can they make beautiful music permanently?
This is a wonderful romance and story of love and understanding for an autistic child. Alex and Luke make a great couple. Their relationship is fast, but Alex’s parents’ romance was love at first sight also . The sex scenes are explicit, but not gratuitous. Luke’s protectiveness and love with Alex’s understanding of Cody’s needs made me love the couple that much more. The subplot story of Alex’s parents adds to the surprise twists. This second book in the series is as enjoyable as the first, which just makes me want to keep returning to Oak Hollow to meet more of these small-town inhabitants.
I highly recommend this small-town contemporary romance! I look forward to reading many more in this series.
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About the Author
Makenna Lee is an award-winning romance author living in the Texas Hill Country with her real-life hero and their two children. Her oldest son has Down syndrome and taught her to appreciate the little things, and he inspired one of her novels. As a child, she played in the woods, looked for fairies under toadstools, and daydreamed. Her writing journey began when she mentioned all her story ideas, and her husband asked why she wasn’t writing them down. The next day she bought a laptop, started her first book, and knew she’d found her passion. Now, Makenna is often drinking coffee while writing, reading, or plotting a new story. Her wish is to write books that touch your heart, making you feel, think, and dream. She enjoys renaissance festivals, nature photography, studying herbal medicine, and usually listens to Celtic music while writing. She writes for Harlequin and Entangled Publishing and believes everyone deserves a happy ending.
A kid walks into your bookstore and… Guess what? He’s your son. The one you put up for adoption eighteen years ago. The one you never told anyone about. Surprise!
And a huge surprise it is.
It’s a huge surprise to his adoptive mother, Monica, who thought she had a close relationship with Matthew, her nearly adult son. But apparently, he felt the need to secretly arrange a vacation to Cape Cod for the summer so he could meet his birth mother…without a word to either her or his dad.
It’s also a surprise— to say the least—to Harlow, the woman who secretly placed her baby for adoption so many years ago. She’s spent the years since then building a quiet life. She runs a bookstore with her grandfather, hangs out with her four younger siblings and is more or less happily single, though she can’t help gravitating toward Grady Byrne, her old friend from high school. He’s moved back to town, three-year-old daughter in tow, no wife in the picture. But she’s always figured her life had to be child-free, so that complicates things.
When Matthew walks into Harlow’s store, she faints. Monica panics. And all their assumptions—about what being a parent really means—explode. This summer will be full of more surprises as both their families are redefined…and as both women learn that for them, there’s no limit to a mother’s love.
A LITTLE RAY OF SUNSHINE by Kristan Higgins is an emotionally intense women’s fiction family drama with romantic elements featuring a bookstore owner on Cade Cod and the son she gave up for adoption eighteen years previously. While this standalone is a great read, it has a cover which may lead you to believe this is a light summer read, it definitely is not.
Every year the Patel family takes an extended summer vacation to a different location. This year seventeen-year-old Matthew has talked the family into going to Cape Cod. He and his father arrive first, while his mother and younger sister will arrive when her school year is over. Matthew and his father go into the local independent bookstore and when the owner, Harlow sees them, she faints.
Harlow secretly placed her son up for adoption the summer between her freshman and sophomore year of college. She picked the family her son would go to, but he was not supposed to be able to contact her if he chose until his eighteenth birthday. He found her online and did not tell his adoptive family that this was his reason for the Cape Cod vacation. Now he is here for the summer and while she is excited, she is also about to have her quiet life blown up.
There is so much happening in this story. Harlow is dealing with seeing a beautiful grown son who wants to get to know her and her family. She also must tell her family about having a child at eighteen for the first time. Monica Patel is dealing with a son who has lied to the family and the fear of him choosing his birth mother over her love. The two mothers’ emotions and point of view pull you into this drama because you can empathize with both. Matthew is dealing with questions children of adoption are known to have and his emotional shifts are as heart wrenching as the two mother’s stories. There are several characters with side stories woven throughout that lighten the emotional angst at times, or bring a bit of romance into the plot, but overall this is a story where you will want to have the tissues close by your side.
I highly recommend this emotionally charged women’s fiction!
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About the Author
Kristan Higgins is the New York Times, USA TODAY and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of more than twenty novels, wKristan Higgins is the New York Times, USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of more than twenty novels. Her books have been translated into more than 20 languages and have sold millions of copies around the world. Kristan has been praised for her mix of “laugh-out-loud humor and tear-jerking pathos,” which the author attributes to a diet high in desserts and sugar-based mood swings.
Kristan’s books have received dozens of awards and accolades, including starred reviews from People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Good Morning America, Kirkus, the New York Journal of Books, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, National Public Radio and Booklist. She personally responds to every reader letter she receives, even the mean ones.
Kristan is the mother of two ridiculously good-looking children and the grandmother of the world’s cutest baby. She lives in Connecticut and Cape Cod with her heroic firefighter husband, a rescue mutt and indifferent cat. In her spare time, Kristan enjoys gardening, easy yoga classes, mixology and pasta.
Leedswick Castle has housed the Alnwick family in the English countryside for generations, despite a family curse determined to destroy their legacy and erase them from history.
1870. After a disastrous dinner at the Astor mansion forces her to flee New York in disgrace, socialite Beatrice Holbrook knows her performance in London must be a triumph. When she catches the eye of Charles Alnwick, one of the town’s most enviably titled bachelors, she prepares to attempt a social coup and become the future Marchioness of Northridge. Then tragedy and scandal strike the Alnwick family, and Beatrice must assume the role of a lifetime: that of her true, brave self.
1917. Artist Elena Hamilton arrives in Northumberland determined to transform a soldier’s wounds into something beautiful. Tobias Alnwick’s parents have commissioned a lifelike mask to help their son return to his former self after battle wounds partially destroyed his face. But Elena doesn’t see a man who needs fixing—she sees a man who needn’t hide. Yet secrets from their past threaten to chase away the peace they’ve found in each other and destroy the future they’re creating.
1945. Alec Alnwick returns home from the war haunted but determined to leave death and destruction behind. With the help of Brigitta Mayr, the brilliant young psychoanalyst whose correspondence was a lifeline during his time on the Western Front, he reconstructs his family’s large estate into a rehabilitation center for similarly wounded soldiers. Alec’s efforts may be the only chance to redeem his family legacy—and break the curse on the Alnwick name—once and for all.
Three beloved authors share stories of the Alnwick family through the generations, revealing how love and war can change a place—but only its people can unshackle it from the misdeeds of the past.
THE CASTLE KEEPERS by Aimie K. Runyan, J’nell Ciesielski, and Rachel McMillan is an enchanting novella anthology of historical romances featuring three generations of Alnwick heirs and is set at the “cursed” Leedswick castle in rugged Northumberland England.
Each novella, besides the historical romance plot, had an interesting hook that made them more than just a romance. The first set in 1870, The Truth Keepers, set up the premise of the “curse” that runs through all three novellas. It also had a heroine that was a “Dollar Princess” and a mystery plot involving the castle’s Poison Garden. In the 1917 setting, The Memory Keepers, the heroine is an artist who paints masks for disfigured Tommies returning from WWI. The last novella set in 1945, The Dream Keepers, has a heroine with psychological training who works with the returned heir to help soldiers covalence in the rural castle setting and offers psychological analysis. Wars and the “Curse” have affected each Alnwick heir, and each will find a love that may be what they need to heal, learn to love, and break the curse.
I really enjoyed each novella in this anthology. The authors were able to pull me right into each romance and time period with well developed characters and interesting and varied heroines and plots.
I recommend this enjoyable historical romance anthology.
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About the Author – Aimie K. Runyan
Aimie writes fiction, both historical and contemporary, that celebrates the spirit of strong women. In addition to her writing, she is active as a speaker and educator in the writing community. She lives in Colorado with her amazing husband, kids, cats, and pet dragon.
Bestselling author and with a passion for heart-stopping adventure and sweeping love stories, J’nell Ciesielski weaves fresh takes into romances of times gone by. When not creating dashing heroes and daring heroines, she can be found dreaming of Scotland, indulging in chocolate of any kind, or watching old black and white movies. She is a Florida native who now lives in Virginia with her husband, daughter, and lazy beagle.
Rachel McMillan is the author of The London Restoration, The Mozart Code, the Herringford and Watts mysteries, the Van Buren and DeLuca mysteries, and the Three Quarter Time series of contemporary Viennese romances. She is also the author of Dream, Plan, Go: A Travel Guide to Inspire Independent Adventure. .
Tasting wine is not enough: sommelier Giovanni D’Angelo wants to create it. To put his family first, he’s always deferred his dreams—a vineyard to run, a woman to marry. But a three-week vineyard tour in Italy could set him back on track.
For Emma Rutledge, wine is in her blood. Intent to run the family wine business one day, she finds that the men in her family are only intent to push her out of it. But that’s fine—she’s got a plan.
When Gio and Emma meet on a wine tour in Tuscany, their shared aspirations fuel an undeniable chemistry. Returning home to California, they work toward setting up Emma’s vineyard and a label of their own. But when Emma receives a life-altering diagnosis, she worries it’s all been for nothing.
As Emma works to cement her family legacy while dealing with this unexpected challenge, Gio tries to convince her that their future isn’t just wine.
It’s each other.
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Elise’s Thoughts
Beginning of Forever by Catherine Bybee is a story of passion and following one’s dreams. There are deep and meaningful family and friend relationships.
The heroine Emma must contend with a misogynist father who refuses to allow her to be a part of the family wine business. To make matters worse, he has put her ex-husband in charge. Intent to run the family wine business one day, she finds that the men in her family want only to push her out of it. But she has other plans. To take some time off and decide what she will do Emma accepts a gift of a wine tasting tour in Italy.
Both Emma and Gio, the hero, are given for their thirtieth birthdays, a trip to wine country in Tuscany Italy. They form an instant connection and attraction during the three-week tour. Gio wants to continue the relationship once they return to the States and is willing to jump through some hoops to make it happen. After returning to California, they continue to see each other. The relationship takes a turn when an unexpected issue makes Emma reevaluate some things in her life with Gio right by her side.
This is a heartfelt and emotional story that includes struggling with medical issues and family. The humor and banter in the story are a welcome release for readers as they go on a journey with the hero and heroine.
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Author Interview
Elise Cooper: Did you know anyone with the disease hemochromatosis?
Catherine Bybee: That would be me. I was diagnosed after I asked to check to see if I was anemic because I bruise easily. They ran an iron panel. When it came back it was very high. They repeated the blood work. They sent me to a specialist. At the end of the day, they found out my iron counts were incredibly high. As I wrote in the story, I had the same scares as my heroine, Emma. As Emma referred to, we dealt with vampires. Now a couple of years later my liver is free of all the iron. Now I only must go to the vampires every two or three months.
EC: How would you describe Gio?
CB: He is a kind “player.” He does not try to score more girls on his bedpost. He is the culmination of the hot guy people want in their life with a high degree of loyalty. He is charming, caring, and excepting. He is flirty, a teaser, but is also family minded. He is a protective brother to his sister Chloe.
EC: How about Emma?
CB: She is a little jaded because of having to deal with her misogynist father. She is down to earth, direct, competitive, and confident, also flirty.
EC: The relationship?
CB: She does want her happily ever after. They are both very competitive and are intrigued by each other. There is some Yin and Yang. He wants to find her vulnerability. They have a completely different parental dynamic going on in their lives. He has a widowed mom who still dearly loves her late husband and is very supportive of her children. Emma is completely opposite because her mom always buffered the dad. They have a committed relationship from day one without realizing it. Having the same birthday was a little sign from the universe that she should not blow Gio off.
EC: Did the lost luggage scene ever happen to you?
CB: No. I just had to get Gio and Emma alone. This way they went together in a car to buy her some clothes. I wanted her to wear the $5 vendor T-shirts instead of the Chanel and Versace. She has class and sophistication, and this enabled me to bring her down to earth more.
EC: What was the role of Emma’s father, Robert?
CB: He is a jerk, a misogynistic, a self-centered dad. He uses the purse strings to try to control everybody. He is domineering.
EC: Were “The Golden Girls” based on anyone?
CB: Yes, the four women in the book are based on those that come from the villages in Florida. One of my best friends moved there. These women in the villages, a massive retirement community, drink a lot. They were a culmination of what I saw in the villages in Florida. It is like Disneyland for adults. They drink alcohol like it is a soda.
EC: Next books?
CB: It will be Salena and Ryan’s story titled The Whole Time, out in November. It was so much fun to write. Ryan is Emma’s brother and does not rely on the dad and only tolerates him. He rides a motorcycle. Salena s down on her luck. I threw her into the D’Angelo system by her taking over Gio’s apartment. They both have controlling parents. The characters from this book will be in it.
At some point I plan on writing Mama D’Angelo’s book with possibly Dante’s mom Rosa’s story in the same book.
The book after this one is a first in a series. It will have a billionaire theme with dysfunctional wealthy families. There is corporate espionage and twists.
THANK YOU!!
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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for A ROGUE AT STONECLIFFE (A Stonecliffe Novel Book #2) by Candace Camp on this HTP Books Spring 2023 Romance Blog Tour.
Below you will find a book summary, my book review, an excerpt from the book, and the author’s bio and social medial links. Enjoy!
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Book Summary
New York Times bestselling author Candace Camp invites you back to Stonecliffe for a second adventure! Action and romance ensue on this adventurous trip through the beautiful English countryside.
When the love of her life left without any explanation, Annabeth Winfield moved on despairingly, knowing she’d never have a love as thrilling as her first ever again. Sloane Rutherford was roguish and daring, but as Annabeth grew up, she realized that their reckless romance was just a passing adventure, never meant for stability. Twelve years later, Annabeth is engaged to someone new, ready to start her life with a dependable man.
That’s when Sloane returns. And he brings with him a serious warning: Annabeth is in trouble.
After spending the last dozen years working as a spy, Sloane thought he’d left espionage behind him. But now a dangerous blackmailer is after Annabeth. Sloane offers to hide his former lover at Stonecliffe, the Rutherford estate, but stubborn Annabeth demands to be part of the investigation. As the two embark on a dangerous and exciting journey, memories of their past romance resurface. Sloane and Annabeth aren’t the wide-eyed children they used to be, but knowing they’re wrong for each other makes a nostalgic affair seem very right…
A ROGUE AT STONECLIFFE (A Stonecliffe Novel Book #2) by Candace Camp is an intriguing and fast-paced historical second chance romance/romantic suspense set in the Regency period. This is the second book in the series following An Affair at Stonecliffe and while you have more background on the relationships between characters if you read these books in order, this second book still stands well on its own.
Sloane Rutherford is considered a rogue in the worst sense of the word. He broke the heart of his young love when he left and became a spy and smuggler during the war twelve years ago with the belief that he had no choice. He has returned and has no love of his noble relations as he runs his shipping line, gambling hells and taverns and believes he is done with espionage.
Annabeth Winfield is shocked when the man who left her heartbroken returns to Stonecliffe to warn her that her life may be in danger. A letter of confession her father wrote while he was still alive is a danger to an unknown person and they are willing to do anything to find it. Annabeth thought she was done with Sloane, but when there is an attempt made to kidnap her, he is determined to protect her, find out where the letter is and who is after her. Annabeth is no longer that you girl left behind and she demands to part of the investigation.
Annabeth and Sloane are investigating a world of lies, double agents, and traitors all while the love they thought they had buried once again grows. Will Sloane walk away again?
I really loved Annabelle and Sloane and believe they made a wonderful pair. Second chance romances are always so interesting because I get to understand them as young characters and then see how they have changed and matured as they come back together. The sex scenes are steamy, but not gratuitous. All the secondary characters are fully drawn and believable and I especially love Lady Lockwood, Annabelle’s grandmother. The mystery/suspense plot in this story is just as prevalent as the romance plot and kept me turning the pages as Annabelle and Sloane traveled London and the countryside searching for her father’s letter.
This is an exciting and entertaining historical second chance romance/romantic suspense and I am looking forward to reading more in this series.
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Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
1822
Sloane Rutherford wasnot a man who hesitated. He made his decisions, for good or ill, and he lived with them. But today he sat slouched at the breakfast table, food untouched, turning a note round and round in his hand, unable to make up his mind. Should he go to the wedding or not?
Actually there was no question whether he should do it; clearly he should not. The question was whether he would. The event itself didn’t figure into his thoughts. While he was surprised and faintly pleased by the fact that Noelle had invited him, he held most of his own family in disregard…and they looked on him with even less liking. Estranged wasn’t the word for his relationship with the Rutherfords. Shunned would be more like it.
So, no, he had no interest in the wedding itself, no reason to go, and normally he would have tossed the invitation in the ash can. But what drew him almost painfully to attend was precisely the thing that set up an equal ache of reluctance inside his chest: she would be there.
“Annabeth?” Marcus said from the doorway.
Sloane glanced up, startled, and scowled at his father.
“So you’re reading minds now? One would think you would have done better at the card tables.”
“Yes, wouldn’t one?” Marcus replied amicably, and strolled across the room. “Sadly, it didn’t seem to work that way. And your problem didn’t take much intuition. It’s written all over your face.”
Marcus settled into a chair across from Sloane. Clad in his dressing gown and soft slippers, Marcus looked every inch the indolent aristocrat that he was—his luxurious white mane of hair combed back stylishly, his jaw smooth from his valet’s shaving, and his dressing gown made of the richest brocade and cut to fit perfectly. Even if he looked somewhat more worn than his age from years of reckless living, he was still a handsome man.
Sloane wondered if his father might catch the eye of some wealthy widow who would take the man off his hands…but no, Marcus was equally banned from the ton—more because of Sloane’s history than his own numerous vices.
“What are you doing up so early?” Sloane asked, ignoring Marcus’s comments. “You usually don’t stir from your room until ten or eleven.”
“Unfortunately the only appointment Harriman had available was at the ungodly time of nine. It’s quite difficult to get in to see him on such short notice.”
“Ah, your tailor. That would be enough to pull you out of bed.” Sloane’s mouth quirked up. Marcus was still a peacock at his age. No doubt the bill the tailor sent Sloane would be enormous, but Sloane didn’t mind. He’d far rather spend his money on his father’s fashion than on some of Marcus’s other habits.
“But I won’t complain. I was lucky he was able to make room to see me.”
“I expect he’s grateful that I pay your bills on time, unlike most of his aristocratic clients,” Sloane said dryly.
“And I’ll have the entire afternoon to enjoy the prospect of the wedding,” Marcus went on.
“A wedding?” Sloane asked skeptically. “You look forward to weddings?”
“Not everyone is as much of a hermit as you are. Some of us find social occasions agreeable.”
“I’m not a hermit.”
“Mmm, yes. No doubt that’s why you spend so much time alone, brooding. Cornwall suits you perfectly.” Marcus picked up the cup of tea the footman had just set before him and took a sip, his blue eyes twinkling with amusement. “But this wedding, I must admit, offers rather more entertainment than the usual one.”
Sloane made no response. The last topic he wanted to discuss was this wedding.
But his father needed no reply. He went on, “For one thing, there is Noelle, the lovely bride herself, and the potential of gossip over her scandalous past.”
“I can’t see how running from Thorne is any scandal,” Sloane interjected. “Anyone with sense would do so. I find it far stranger that she stopped.”
Marcus chuckled. “Yes, he is a dull one, isn’t he? But I suspect Noelle livens him up. Still, the wedding offers more excitement than that. Lady Lockwood can always be counted on to cause some sort of contretemps…though hopefully she will not bring her dog. Of course Lord Edgerton will be there. I believe he annoys her ladyship even more than her first son-in-law—who knows what barbs she will cast his way?” He paused, then added, “And just imagine the stir if you show up.”
Sloane grunted and slid back from the table, standing. “Which is precisely why I am not going to the wedding.”
“Of course not. That’s why you haven’t tossed out that invitation. Why you were sitting there mooning over it when I came in.”
“I wasn’t mooning over anything. I was just…” He trailed off his sentence with a grimace.
“You were just contemplating whether facing down your relatives outweighed the prospect of seeing Annabeth Winfield.”
“I don’t give a tinker’s damn about facing my relatives.”
“Ah…then it’s whether seeing Annabeth is worth the pain.”
“Don’t be absurd.” Sloane’s voice held little conviction, and he turned away, walking over to the window. He crossed his arms and gazed out at the street below. A moment passed, and he said in a quiet voice, “It would be foolish to see her.”
“No doubt.” Marcus let out a sigh. “The foolish things are always the ones you most desire.”
“I’ve done well enough not seeing her for eleven years.” Being out of the country most of that time had helped. But even since he returned to England, Sloane had avoided Annabeth—well, maybe there was that one time when he first returned and he’d stood outside Lady Lockwood’s house in the dark to get a glimpse of Annabeth coming down the front steps and getting into a carriage. With Nathan. Sloane’s lips tightened at the thought.
It had come as something of a shock to see her at Stonecliffe two months ago. He had not realized that she and Lady Lockwood were visiting or he wouldn’t have gone there.
But as he had stood in the entryway with Noelle and the others, a door had opened down the hall, and there she had been: her soft brown hair in a little disarray, her face faintly flushed from activity, carrying a basket full of flowers. And in the moment, he couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, could only stare. She was as lovely as ever. And he was as dumbstruck as ever.
He’d turned and left like someone had shot at him. He wasn’t sure whether he even tossed a goodbye to Noelle and Carlisle. And bloody Nathan—of course he’d been there. That moment had disrupted Sloane’s carefully nurtured indifference, and even after his heart stopped beating like a madman’s and he’d reminded himself that he’d gotten over her years ago, he had not been able to keep his mind from going back to Annabeth time after time. Like a tongue returning to a bad tooth.
Behind him his father said, “Why do you continue like this? Why don’t you go to see her, tell her how you feel?”
Sloane snorted. “I’d have to fight my way through the butler and probably Lady Lockwood, too, to talk to her.”
“I’ve never known you to avoid a fight.”
“Maybe not. But I can’t fight Annabeth. And she’s the one who hates me.”
“How do you know that?” Marcus persisted. “She’s never married in all this time. She has no money, of course, but a sweet, pretty girl like that? She’s bound to have had plenty of offers.”
“No doubt.” Sloane’s jaw tightened. “But that doesn’t mean she’s been pining after me. I broke her heart. I knew I was breaking her heart. And the fact that I broke mine as well wouldn’t have made her feel any better or despise me any less.”
“Why don’t you tell her the truth?” His father’s voice turned sharp, his usual affability gone. “Explain what you did. Why you did it. Tell her that bastard Asquith blackmailed you into it.”
Sloane whirled, his eyes flashing. “I can’t tell her that. The truth would cause her just as much pain now as it would have then. I knew when I did it that I was sacrificing her love for a lifetime. I just thought my lifetime wouldn’t last very long.”
Letting out a disgusted noise, Sloane started out of the room. Before he’d taken two steps, there was a furious pounding at the front door. Frowning, he turned toward it. The pounding continued, along with someone shouting his name. Sloane reached the entry hall just as the footman opened the door and began an indignant dressing-down of the boy before him.
But the boy on the doorstep paid no attention and shoved his way past the footman, calling again. “Mr. Rutherford!”
“Timmy.” Sloane strode toward the door, alarm rising in him. “What is it? What the devil are—”
“It’s the docks, sir. Mr. Haskell sent me. You’ve got to come quick. The new warehouse is on fire.”
Candace Camp is a New York Times bestselling author of over sixty novels of contemporary and historical romance. She grew up in Texas in a newspaper family, which explains her love of writing, but she earned a law degree and practiced law before making the decision to write full-time. She has received several writing awards, including the RT Book Reviews Lifetime Achievement Award for Western Romances. Visit her at www.candace-camp.com.
