Loe raamatut: «That Old Feeling»
Clint McPherson in the flesh.
He straightened suddenly, and she knew his instinct had warned him he was no longer alone. He swung around.
Brandy sensed two things immediately.
Her father had been right. Something was wrong. The light that had always flared in Clint’s eyes, brilliant and fierce, had an element in it she did not understand. It was as if ice and fire battled within him, and ice was winning.
And the second thing she could not ignore was that her skin was tingling treacherously. She loved Clint McPherson in some primal way she was not sure she could ever tame.
Nonsense, she told herself, utter hogwash.
She had been taming the untamable her whole life!
She was here on assignment for her father. And herself. She would lay her childish heartbreaks and hopes to rest. She would see Clint McPherson through the eyes of a mature woman…and tame that thing inside her that wanted him.
Dear Reader,
Just as the seasons change, you may have noticed that our Silhouette Romance covers have evolved over the past year. We have tried to create cover art that uses more soft pastels, sun-drenched images and tender scenes to evoke the aspirational and romantic spirit of this line. We have also tried to make our heroines look like women you can relate to and may want to be. After all, this line is about the joys of falling in love, and we hope you can live vicariously through these heroines.
Our writers this month have done an especially fine job in conveying this message. Reader favorite Cara Colter leads the month with That Old Feeling (#1814) in which the heroine must overcome past hurts to help her first love raise his motherless daughter. This is the debut title in the author’s emotional new trilogy, A FATHER’S WISH. Teresa Southwick concludes her BUY-A-GUY miniseries with the story of a feisty lawyer who finds herself saddled with an unwanted and wholly irresistible bodyguard, in Something’s Gotta Give (#1815). A sister who’d do anything for her loved ones finds her own sweet reward when she switches places with her sibling, in Sister Swap (#1816)—a compelling new romance by Lilian Darcy. Finally, in Made-To-Order Wife (#1817) by Judith McWilliams, a billionaire hires an etiquette expert to help him land the perfect society wife, and he soon starts rethinking his marriage plans.
Be sure to return next month when Cara Colter continues her trilogy and Judy Christenberry returns to the line.
Happy reading!
Ann Leslie Tuttle
Associate Senior Editor
That Old Feeling
A Father’s Wish
Cara Colter
MILLS & BOON
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To Krista Casada, with thanks for all the “bubbles” you blow my way: friendship, inspiration, laughter.
Books by Cara Colter
Silhouette Romance
Dare To Dream #491
Baby in Blue #1161
Husband in Red #1243
The Cowboy, the Baby and the Bride-to-Be #1319
Truly Daddy #1363
A Bride Worth Waiting For #1388
Weddings Do Come True #1406
A Babe in the Woods #1424
A Royal Marriage #1440
First Time, Forever #1464
*Husband by Inheritance #1532
*The Heiress Takes a Husband #1538
*Wed by a Will #1544
What Child Is This? #1585
Her Royal Husband #1600
9 Out of 10 Women Can’t Be Wrong #1615
Guess Who’s Coming for Christmas? #1632
What a Woman Should Know #1685
Major Daddy #1710
Her Second-Chance Man #1726
Nighttime Sweethearts #1754
†That Old Feeling #1814
Silhouette Books
The Coltons
A Hasty Wedding
CARA COLTER
shares ten acres in the wild Kootenay region of British Columbia with the man of her dreams, three children, two horses, a cat with no tail and a golden retriever who answers best to “bad dog.” She loves reading, writing and the woods in winter (no bears). She says life’s delights include an automatic garage door opener and the skylight over the bed that allows her to see the stars at night. She also says, “I have not lived a neat and tidy life, and used to envy those who did. Now I see my struggles as having given me a deep appreciation of life, and of love, that I hope I succeed in passing on through the stories that I tell.”
Dear Reader,
My life partner, Rob, is an adventurer. He knew how to use a rifle before he knew how to spell Mississippi. I, on the other hand, was raised with swimming lessons, story time at the library and meat that came in nicely wrapped packages from the grocery store. Because of having Rob in my life I have found myself in places where it is possible to be charged by a grizzly bear—and I was! Quite frankly, I’m happier at home with a book, but being thrown completely into an alien world, where I’m uncomfortable, awkward and frightened, forces me to be more than I was before.
This series, A FATHER’S WISH, begins with a delightful what if. What if three young women, who had been indulged their entire lives, were put in situations that required more of them than had ever been required before? Though my three heroines don’t leave civilization (though they might argue that point) the challenges they face are grizzly bears to them! And, of course, they have the most remarkable heroes to antagonize them, challenge them, protect them and guide them.
I invite you to come with me as Brandy, Jessie and Chelsea—one brave, one brainy, one beautiful—find out life and love have plans for them that are beyond their wildest dreams….
Sincerely,
Cara Colter
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Epilogue
Prologue
Two letters sat on his desk, both unopened, both marked Personal and Confidential. One was typed, the return address familiar to him. The second was addressed in handwriting, the feminine script of one not yet mature. He did not recognize that name or the return address. His hand hovered, and then he chose, hope and dread mixed within him.
Moments later, Winston Jacob King put down the typed letter and pinched the bridge of his nose between bony fingers. He felt shocked, all over again, though the letter only confirmed what his doctor had told him earlier in the week.
Dying.
He shouldn’t be shocked. He was eighty-three years old. Had he really thought he was going to live forever?
The short answer? Yes.
Jake got up from behind his desk. A fire roared in the hearth, though it was a mild day. He was always cold, now.
He crossed the room, which was furnished in an eclectic mix of antiques. A thick Persian rug covered the aged oak floor, and Degas, Pissaro, Monet hung on the walls. But he noticed none of what it had taken him a lifetime to collect. Instead, he looked out the huge bay window.
His Southampton estate, Kingsway, lay before him. Tulips and daffodils splashed the spring beds with color. A gardener pruned the rosebushes. Beyond him were lush pastures and a Hanoverian mare, muscled and shiny, grazing contentedly while her foal frolicked.
The doctor had said he might have a year left, if they managed everything perfectly.
For some reason, as Jake looked out over his fields, a line from that haunting Johnny Cash song, played in his head.
“My empire of dirt,” Jake murmured out loud. Once upon a time it had made him so proud that he—a man who had begun as a mechanic from the backwoods—had accomplished all this. In a recent issue of Success Magazine, Jake’s company, Auto Kingdom, had been called the Costco of the automobile aficionado. Ridiculous, since he predated Costco by forty years.
Jake did not feel afraid of dying. No, what he felt was a sharp sense of sadness for his children, his three daughters. None were married, and he longed for the miracle of a grandchild.
“That’s what you get for marrying so late in life,” he berated himself. He’d been fifty-seven when his first daughter was born.
He went to the wall that was hung, window to window and ceiling to floor, with photographs of his princesses. His true treasures.
The wall documented the lives of his three daughters. Wasn’t it just yesterday he had stood in front of the hospital, beaming so proudly, with Brandgwen, his firstborn, in his arms? Wasn’t it just a moment ago that Jessica had sat on that fat Welsh pony? Didn’t only a breath separate him from the day he’d stood in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower with his baby Chelsea’s small hand in his?
He felt such a rush of tenderness looking at their faces, the stamp of their personalities surviving the march of time. Brandy always looking faintly mischievous and lovely as a leprechaun, Jessica, looking studious, her green eyes huge behind those glasses, and his baby, Chelsea, twenty-two already, gorgeous and self-assured, always posing.
Brave, brainy and beautiful, his three daughters. Long ago, playing on his name and the American public’s yearning for royalty, the press had dubbed his daughters princesses, and it had stuck for all these years.
The photographs showed lifestyles that might have been envied by real royalty. His throat ached as he looked at all his efforts to make them happy. The wall documented his daughters, at various ages, jumping their ponies, riding gondolas on the canals in Venice, skiing the slopes of the Alps. It documented the cars, the lavish birthday parties, the trinkets, the diamond tiaras, the gowns.
Oh, yes, Jake had gone into overdrive trying to insure the happiness of his daughters, after the scandalous death of his very young and very beautiful wife, more than twenty years ago.
There was no picture of Marcie on this wall. She had died when Brandy, their oldest daughter, had been six.
Brandy did not have her mother’s looks—her face had always been impish rather than gorgeous. Dark sapphire-blue eyes were her only inheritance from her mother. She had hair as his own had once been—brown, thick, and just wavy enough to make it impossible to tame. Who knew where the freckles had come from? She had never outgrown them. She had been, to her mother’s distress, happiest in overalls down at the stables. Brandy had a reckless streak in her, and it glittered in her eyes. The press had dubbed her the tomboy princess.
She was twenty-six, now, still as lithe as a young boy. And still a thrill seeker. Her bravery was legend. The King fortune had allowed her to pursue one adrenaline rush after another, and he had indulged her.
A mistake. Her latest “hobby” was BASE jumping. Her last jump had been from the top of the highest waterfall in the world, Angel Falls in Venezuela, every heart-stopping moment of it recorded by her faithful press. She’d always been like that, reckless.
But in light of his own news, he seemed to be seeing Brandy differently. She risked everything—except her heart.
Behind the dancing darkness of her eyes he could see the wariness in her.
Well, why wouldn’t she be wary of love? She would have some memory of her mother’s colossal indifference to her, the storminess of her parents’ relationship.
He shifted his attention from Brandy to his other daughters, and with newfound depth, he felt the cruel weight of failure.
For all his efforts, were any of his princesses really happy? Not one of his daughters seemed to have a goal, a dream, a quest. Not one of them seemed to understand that love was everything.
Jessie, Jessica, his second daughter. She had hurtled through high school and entered university at seventeen. She was twenty-four now, and he had lost track of what degree she was working on. She talked of things he did not understand. Jessie seemed to be intellectual and disconnected. Despite having some kind of boyfriend—a fuddy-duddy professor who seemed about as exciting as day-old porridge—Jake saw heartbreaking loneliness in the lovely green of her astonishing eyes. Eyes hidden behind hideous glasses, and her gorgeous wheat-colored hair tucked into a prim bun that made her look like a spinster.
And then there was his baby, Chelsea. Ah, she was the darling of the press. Her picture was in some paper or magazine every time he went by a newsstand. She was the most like Marcie in looks, her beauty absolutely breathtaking. Her eyes were hazel, an exact mix of Marcie’s blue and his own brown. Her hair floated nearly to her waist in a shiny wave of platinum blond. Her features were perfect, her mouth wide and generous.
She had her own staff—a hairstylist and a dresser who were so important to her she traveled with them. She kept such a high profile she had to have a bodyguard. Jake had indulged her, too, her every whim satisfied.
And yet he had the disconcerting feeling, when he was around Chelsea, that she wasn’t able to see real beauty, that her world had become so superficial it had blinded her to what was real and good and genuine.
Jake kissed his fingertips and touched the images of his daughters’ cheeks. His heart swelled within his chest, feeling as if it would break for loving them.
One year. Would that be enough to help his daughters discover what life was really all about? He wasn’t going to play matchmaker. That would be disgraceful and manipulative.
But he had successfully created and run one of the largest corporations in the U.S. He knew that sometimes bringing the correct combination of people together, then leaving them alone, made remarkable and magical things happen.
Surely, a man who knew power as intimately as he did could do something so simple as set it up so his daughters could make the discovery that he himself had just made?
In the end, only one thing mattered.
Love.
Long ago, he had loved a woman, truly. She had not been like Marcie. She had not even been particularly pretty. But she had glowed with a genuine sweetness that, at the time, he had not fully appreciated. Lately, he awoke at night remembering the feeling of her head pressed into his neck, her dark hair scattered across his chest. He felt a sense of shattering loss now that he had not felt then.
Then, so busy building Auto Kingdom, so driven, that when she had talked to him of the future, of babies, he had been impatient. Perhaps he had even been cruel. Certainly insensitive, preoccupied with “important” matters.
He must have been, because she had gone away.
“Fiona,” he called softly, and for a moment he could have sworn he felt her presence tingle across his spine, as warm and sweet as ever. It filled him with longing, which he impatiently brushed aside. He would not start acting old and feebleminded!
But he did realize that, save for his daughters, he might have missed love’s glory all together. Was it too late to return to them the gift they had given him? If he could help them find love…
The shock lifted from him, the haze he had been walking in since opening the doctor’s letter fell away. He became a man with a mission, a brilliant strategist who needed to get his most important affairs in order before he left this earth.
His most important affairs: Brandy, Jessie and Chelsea.
He returned to his desk. He would have to be crafty. He couldn’t summon them all at once. They were smart girls, every one of them. Together they would sniff out a plot to meddle in their lives as easily as his hounds caught the scent of a fox.
No, he had to help them one at a time, and hope and pray that the clock wouldn’t run out.
Aware that time was of the essence, he picked up the phone to his personal assistant. “James? Find Brandy. Get her home at once.”
He picked up the letter and envelope from his doctor, crushed them in his hand, and moved to the fireplace. He hurtled them in.
Too late, he realized he had inadvertently crumpled the two letters—the one still unopened—together. He watched the girlish handwriting emerge from under the other burning paper, curl and then turn brown before it disappeared into flame.
A chill went up and down his spine, even though he could not know that he would have found the content of that second letter as devastating as that of the first….
Chapter One
“I do not love Clint McPherson,” Brandy told herself tersely.
She had been repeating the phrase like a mantra since she’d left Kingsway, her father’s home in Southampton on Long Island.
She was now driving, alone, on an unfamiliar road that twisted and wound around the shores of Lake of the Woods, a body of water so enormous that it was shared by two Canadian provinces and the state of Minnesota.
Finding one small cabin on it was beginning to look like an impossible task.
A cabin that belonged to none other than Clint McPherson.
Of course, she could say she hadn’t been able to find it or him. End of mission. Who would really expect her to find a place on a map dotted with names like Minaki and Keewatin and Kenora? People who were under the illusion English was spoken in Canada should just have a look at this map!
What are you afraid of? an unwanted voice within her asked.
Brandgwen King had spent the majority of her life proving she was afraid of absolutely nothing, so the question irked. She was not afraid of Clint McPherson, or in love with him either! So, she’d had a girlhood crush on the man once. Big deal. It meant nothing. At twenty-six, she was all grown up now. The pain of how he had scorned her was long gone.
The point should be moot. The man in her life was Jason Morehead, her long time companion in adventure. Recently things had turned romantic, then unromantic, and now Jason was avidly begging her hand in marriage.
Why not marry him? He was wealthy, he was awesomely good-looking, he shared her taste for all things fast and furious.
“I don’t love him,” she said vehemently, and knew she was talking about Clint, even though she had been thinking of Jason, whom she was pretty sure she didn’t love either. With pure frustration, Brandy pounded on the steering wheel of the red Ferrari she was driving.
Her father had arranged for her to have a car through a dealership connection in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where her flight from New York had landed several hours ago. She had been given the keys, told to use the car for as long as she needed it, no charge. It was a fact of life, in her circles, that the more money you had, the less you needed it.
Of course, that nice man had probably thought the tomboy princess was going to be photographed in and around town in his car, not heading into some godforsaken wilderness.
“Love Clint McPherson?” she said out loud, with a derisive snort. “More like hate him.”
How had she gotten back to that when she’d been thinking, with determination, about the nice man who had lent her the nice car?
She sighed, annoyed with herself, and then surrendered. Hate? That seemed a bit strong for a man she had not seen for nearly seven years, not since he’d totally spoiled her nineteenth birthday party.
“Indifferent,” she decided, and then announced it out loud, putting down her window and calling it to the giant fir trees that lined the road. “I am indifferent to Clint McPherson.”
It rang of a lie. She knew it. The trees probably knew it, too. She put her window back up, took a twist in the road a trifle too quickly and slowed marginally.
How could her father have asked this of her? And why had she said yes?
She thought back to her meeting with her father, and the frown of concentration deepened on her face.
He had seemed old.
Of course, he was old. He’d always been old, even when she was young!
But he had never seemed old.
She was coming to see Clint because her father had asked her to. And maybe because she needed time to sort through all the implications of Jason’s unexpected announcement of his deep and undying love.
It was that simple. She had not agreed to this trip because she harbored some secret wish to see Clint again. She had come because her father asked things of her so rarely. He didn’t know it, but if he ever said to her that he wished she would not do some of the things that she did—like jumping out of airplanes or, more recently, off cliffs, buildings and bridges—then she would stop, just like that, no questions asked.
But he never asked.
Now he had asked something. He was old, yes, but beloved to her. The truth was Brandy would do anything for him, this gentle man who had loved her, and her sisters, so unconditionally, forever.
She thought back on the conversation she’d had with him. She had been distracted by the heat in the room, the fire blazing, so his request had really caught her up the side of the head.
“Brandy,” he’d said. “I need a favor. Clint—”
Her heart had done that traitorous flip-flop at the sound of his name.
“—has not recovered from Rebecca’s death.”
Rebecca, the woman Clint McPherson had married, was a woman who had been everything Brandy was not. Because Rebecca was a lawyer for Jake’s company, Brandy had known her slightly, well enough to know she was composed, classy, refined. Her hair was of the tameable variety, her makeup never ran and her clothing never rumpled.
Brandy’s chestnut locks, on the other hand, had a will of their own. Her style depended largely on humidity, direction of the wind and other forces beyond her control. Even when she tried to tame her masses of wavy hair, a few tresses always defiantly sprang free, giving her an impish look that went well with the nickname tomboy princess the press had given her long ago, and that she had never managed to outgrow.
Added to that, she had never learned the subtleties of proper makeup application, despite her younger sister Chelsea’s many efforts to show her.
And clothing? She relied heavily on many-pocketed cargo pants and T-shirts. To Chelsea’s horror, sweats were her sister’s favorite fashion statement.
Brandy knew her lack of fashion acumen was a disappointment to the American public who had long ago made Jake King’s motherless daughters into their princesses. At least she had not opted out of the role entirely, like her sister Jessie. No, Brandy tried never to disappoint in the fast-living department. Not parties or drugs, no, just lots of rich-kid fun: big engines, fast horses, white water. She had discovered the love of her life when she was sixteen and had sky-dived for the first time. The new thrill was BASE jumping.
Her lack of ability to make a stunning personal fashion statement was part of the reason she had not attended Clint’s wedding, though she had been invited, of course. Clint was like family, her father’s right-hand man since Brandy had been fourteen.
Younger, and so much more dynamic than the rest of that inner circle, Clint had fairly bristled with a kind of dangerous energy that had made her skin tingle.
“Back when I was young and hopelessly naive,” she told herself, taking a curve much too quickly. Clint would not make her skin tingle, now.
Good grief, no. She hung out with Jason Morehead, People magazine’s number-two pick as the world’s sexiest and most eligible bachelor.
Still, Brandy had made sure she was a world away the day Clint McPherson had spoiled her fondest fantasy by marrying someone else. She had sent a lavish gift—a complete set of antique silverware—if she recalled. On the day Clint had said, “I do,” Brandy had been paddling frantically through the foaming, freezing waters in the Five Finger Rapids section of the Yukon River.
And for the birth of Clint and Rebecca’s daughter—the same. An exquisite, expensive gift—a handmade bassinet from Italy—but Brandy had been a no-show at the christening party. She’d been arrested for jumping off the New River Gorge Bridge in Virginia for the utterly ridiculous reason that it wasn’t “Bridge Day,” the only day of the year that BASE jumping was legal off the 876-foot height.
And then, shockingly, only days after the christening, Rebecca had died. Brandy had known, because of Clint’s longstanding relationship with her family, that she’d had to go to the funeral. But somehow she had ended up at Angel Falls in Venezuela instead. She’d sent a card and an extravagant, tasteful, subdued spray of white roses.
“It’s been more than a year,” her father had said, sadly. “He does some work from home, but he’s become reclusive. He stays at that cabin in Canada, with a baby, and when I talk to him he seems so detached, unnaturally cool, as if nothing touches him.”
Brandy had listened to her father, and thought, a bit cynically, that there was nothing new about Clint being detached or unnaturally cool. But her heart insisted on hearing the words her father didn’t say. Clint had loved Rebecca so much that he planned to mourn forever.
“Brandy, I want you to go to him.”
It was probably been the heat in the room, but for a moment she actually thought she was going to faint. “What?” she stammered.
“You were always the one who could make him laugh. Go and make Clint laugh again.”
“I don’t recall making him laugh,” she said stiffly. “I recall making him very, very angry on several occasions.”
“Precisely,” her father said with satisfaction.
“Sorry?”
“Brandy, you make him feel strongly. Go there. Make him laugh, or make him angry, but make him feel something.”
The room was silent for a long time while she pondered what he was asking of her. She gave him the only possible answer.
“I can’t,” she said softly. “Really. I can’t.”
Then her father did something he had never done before.
He covered her hand with his, and she felt the tremble in it. His eyes locked on hers, and she saw the weariness there and the pleading. Then he whispered, “Please.”
She stared at him and heard his desperation, heard that he was begging her to do this thing for him.
She felt the shock of it, knew the depth of his love for the man who had stood so loyally at his side for so long, and knew she could not refuse her father this request, even if it threatened the most secret places within her, even if she knew it was absurd to put herself in this position.
She was not going to be able to rescue Clint.
Still, her father’s hand trembling on top of hers and the stifling heat in the room and the desperation in his voice had made her say yes, she would go there. She would try.
Besides, it would give her a week or two to figure out what to do about Jason.
So now, pretty sure she was lost in the Canadian wilds, she stopped once again and studied her instructions. She was in the heart of lake country now. Down the occasional long, winding driveway, she caught a glimpse of a posh resort, a private cabin, heavenly worlds that promised the perfect summer. But it was still early in the year, spring, and the countryside seemed largely abandoned.
“I do not love Clint McPherson,” she told herself, and gave herself a shake, wondering how her thoughts had gone there when she had been focusing so fiercely on the spring landscapes around her.
She put the car back in gear and took the next series of twists in the road fast enough to make her heart hammer within her throat.
That was how she always handled emotion. She shoved it away with adrenaline.
“My drug of choice,” she muttered. She thought it was a fairly good one, too. Much better than booze or drugs or food, or the worst one of all, men.
She slammed on the brakes, put the car in reverse.
A small copper sign, mounted on a tasteful stone post, glinted in the sun, nearly lost among the thick green foliage that surrounded it. It marked a private driveway.
Touch the Flame.
She was here then. She took a deep breath and recognized she was afraid. So she did what she always did when she felt that uncomfortable little fissure of fear.
She put the gas pedal down so hard that she was sucked back into her seat as if she were on a launch.
The car rocketed up a scenic lane, lined on both sides with gigantic fir trees. The road climbed a gentle rise, and she slammed on the brakes again at the top, her breath caught in her throat.
She had seen some of the most beautiful places on earth.
Yet this place caught at her heart. The road curved downward, opening suddenly out of woods into a beautiful clearing.
It wasn’t exactly a cabin that stood there, but a log house, golden, sweeping, windows everywhere. It was on the edge of a manicured lawn that swept downward to the sparkling gray-blue lake waters. The property was located on a sheltered bay, completely private, natural rocks standing like powerful sentinels at the mouth of the cove. Beds of flowers rimmed the lawns, looking wild and glorious. It did not look like the property of a man who was living in misery.
It occurred to her, within minutes, she would see him again. Her heart beating in her throat, she drove slowly down to the house. She parked her vehicle beside a carport that held a silver Escalade.
She got out of her car and shut the door quietly. The fragrance of the trees wrapped around her, clean and pure, heaven-scented. At first she thought it was silent, almost eerily so, but then she could hear the call of birds, the insulted chatter of a squirrel, the lap of the water on the nearby shore.
Tasuta katkend on lõppenud.
