Harlequin Desire June 2020 - Box Set 2 of 2

by Karen Booth

  In her heart, she knew why. He was a decent man, and he knew he had hurt her feelings. That was all she would admit to… No reason for him to know how she really felt. No reason at all.

  “I need you to be a cute distraction,” she whispered to Dolly. The little girl slobbered and blew a bubble and tooted. Great. So much for backup.

  The next knock sounded fiercer. “Open the door, Ivy.”

  Dear God, please don’t let me make a fool of myself.

  She looked down at her faded jeans and her long-sleeved navy Henley top. The casual clothes were a far cry from the beautiful wardrobe she had worn for the weekend retreat. Not to mention that she had a smear of mashed banana on her sleeve and a tiny hole at her elbow.

  Cinderella was definitely back with the mice.

  Before she could lose her nerve, she smoothed her hair with one hand and jerked open the door. “Hello, Farrell. What brings you here?”

  * * *

  Farrell had almost given up. If Ivy didn’t want to see him, did he have to leave, or could he try to make amends? While he was still wrestling with that thorny question, there she was.

  “Ivy…” His words dried up.

  She stepped back. “Come in.”

  The motel room was dismal. That was the nicest description he could come up with. Ivy herself was everything he remembered and more. The hazel eyes with the wary gaze. Pointed chin. Unpainted pink lips that had kissed him and offered him joy again. He wanted to grab her and hold her and never let her go.

  But even a blind man could sense the great chasm between them.

  He cleared his throat. “I couldn’t find you.”

  She frowned. “I’m only an hour from your house…give or take.”

  “Don’t be coy. You hid in plain sight. I’ve been to Charleston for two weeks. And all over Portland. You didn’t register the car, damn it.” He was losing it, and Ivy’s expression closed up.

  She pursed her lips. “I’m sorry you’ve been inconvenienced, Farrell. But I’m not sure what that has to do with me.”

  He glanced behind him at the two beds. Both were covered with bilious green satin bedspreads that matched the door. “May we please sit down?”

  She shrugged. “If you like.”

  Dolly was giving him the stink eye. Didn’t the kid remember how many times he had played with her? Sung to her? Rubbed her back as she fell asleep?

  An awkward silence fell. Where to start…

  Ivy glanced at her watch.

  Farrell decided to cut to the chase. “I’m not in love with Sasha anymore, I swear. She was my first love. And I will always honor her memory, but she’s my past.”

  Ivy blinked. “Okay.”

  The stubborn woman wasn’t going to make this easy on him.

  He didn’t really blame her. So he took a breath and kept going.

  “I’m sorry I threw you out,” he said. “That was cowardly. And wrong.”

  Another blink. “Got it. No worries.”

  “Please come back with me,” he begged.

  This time her eyes flashed fire, a fire he hadn’t fully understood until this moment. “No, thank you,” she said, her tone excruciatingly polite. “Dolly and I are fine.”

  “Do you even have a job?” he asked in desperation. “We tried tracing your Social Security number, but nothing pinged.”

  “We?” Her facade cracked. “Who’s we?”

  “Zachary and Katie and Quin, of course. I needed help finding you. So I told them everything.”

  Her eyes widened. “No.”

  He shrugged. “Yes. Not the intimate details, of course, but enough to give them a clear picture of the urgency I felt.”

  This time, she frowned. “What urgency?”

  He took a deep breath. “I told them I loved you, but that I had treated you badly and made you run away.”

  Ivy went so white he thought she might pass out. The mostly-healed scrape on her cheek was visible still. She was far too thin. Had she not been eating well?

  “Yes, you did,” she said, her lips pale. “But I’ve pursued other employment.”

  “What do you do?” He didn’t really care, but he sensed he needed to keep the conversation flowing or she would shut him down.

  Ivy played with Dolly’s hair. “I wait tables at a bar six nights a week. My shift starts at nine and ends at one in the morning. The lady next door comes here to my room and watches TV while Dolly sleeps. The bar tips are decent. I give her part of my paycheck for her trouble.”

  Good God. That meant Ivy was wandering the streets in the middle of the night, vulnerable to any number of dangers.

  And all because of him. He hadn’t thought his spirits could sink any lower. It wasn’t so easy to speak casually this time, because his throat was tight with emotion. “When do you sleep?” he muttered.

  Ivy stared at him. “From two until seven in the morning, when this little one wakes up. And again during her naps. It’s not so bad. We’re making it work.”

  Farrell looked around him at the awful orange-and-gold wallpaper and the threadbare carpet with the unidentifiable stains. He wanted to cry. And he would have if he thought Ivy would take pity on him.

  Why should she ever forgive him for what he had done? At least her bastard of a husband had kept a roof over her head. Farrell had made her homeless. He swallowed hard.

  “Did you hear what I said earlier?”

  “About what?”

  “I told Katie and Quin and Zachary that I loved you.”

  Her bottom lip trembled. “But you never told me.” Huge tears welled in her eyes, rolled down her cheeks, wet the baby’s head.

  “Ah, God, Ivy.” He went to her, his heart breaking, and knelt beside the bed. Taking her free hand in his, he kissed it, held it to his cheek. “I love you, Ivy Danby. You burst into my world, not like a blazing comet, but like a quiet, unremarkable moon on the back side of a planet. I barely knew you were there at first, and then I started looking for you. All the time.”

  The hint of a smile interrupted her tears. “That’s a terrible metaphor, Farrell. Stick to inventing.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s a simile, but we can argue about that later.” He looked up at her, letting her see the nights of agonized worry, the deep regret, the unquenchable hope. “I adore you, Ivy. I knew it when I made love to you that last night, but I thought I could keep my emotions out of it. Then you fell down those god-awful steps, and I realized how easily I could lose you. It terrified me. I didn’t want to feel that pain again. So I shoved you away.”

  He laid his cheek on her thigh. “I am so sorry, my love. Sorrier than you will ever know. Forgive me for being such a complete and utter failure as a human being.”

  Slender fingers sifted through his hair. His heart stopped. Jerked. Beat again more rapidly.

  Ivy exhaled, a broken, shaky sound that heaped more coals of fire on his head. “I forgive you, Farrell. I do. And I even understand. But I’m not the woman to replace your Sasha.”

  Farrell stood abruptly and lifted Dolly from Ivy’s arms. He grabbed the baby’s favorite stacking cups from the dresser and set her and the toy in the port-a-crib. A brand-new one. He patted the baby’s head. “Give me ten minutes, Dolly. Please. And if we’ve got a deal, I’ll buy you a pony on your fifth birthday.”

  Luckily for him, the little girl was in a mood to be entertained easily.

  Farrell spun back toward the bed, took Ivy’s cold hands in his and drew her to her feet. He squeezed her fingers, looking down into her glorious hazel eyes. “Listen to me, Ivy. You’re nobody’s replacement. Ever. You’re not second-string. You’re not the consolation prize. You’re strong and brave and tough and vulnerable. I love everything about you. When you were in a bad situation, you fought your way through, and you made it. You kept yourself and your daughter afloat against a
ll odds.”

  She shook her head slowly. Nothing in her expression told him she had heard or believed a word he said. “You don’t have to rescue me, Farrell. I’ve rescued myself. I’m only here at the motel temporarily. I have several job interviews coming. I’ve made plans for the future, for Dolly and me. I enjoyed having sex with you. A lot. But I’m moving on.”

  “Don’t lie to me, sweetheart. I was there. You gave me your precious body and you took mine as your right. We were together in every sense of the word. You’re my future, Ivy. I can’t live without you. I won’t. If I have to, I’ll book the room next door and wait up for you every night until you come home to me. You’re mine, Ivy. I didn’t know it would happen like this, and God knows, I don’t deserve you, but if you’ll give me another chance, you won’t ever have reason to doubt me again.”

  He ran out of breath and out of words.

  Only their hands touched.

  Ivy’s big-eyed gaze searched his face. He wasn’t sure what she saw. He’d been torn apart and put back together so many times in these past weeks, he wasn’t the same man. “Ivy?”

  She reached up slowly, put her hands on his cheeks, tested the stubble on his chin, stroked his brow. “You mean it, don’t you?”

  He nodded, willing her to understand. “I’ve never felt like this before. I was a very young man when I was with Sasha. We were young together, and we were naive about what the world could throw at us. But you and I have been through hell and back, Ivy. We’ve been tested, tried. Neither of us knows what the future holds, but I will love you for as many days as we have on this earth, and I pray they’ll be too many to count.”

  She sniffed and wiped her nose on his expensive Egyptian cotton shirt. “Engineers aren’t supposed to be poets.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung. “I love you, too. Almost since the beginning. And I won’t let you go either.”

  Her admission sent a shudder through his body, a wave of pained relief. For the longest time, they stood there, wrapped in each other’s arms, contemplating how close they had come to having nothing at all. At last, Farrell couldn’t bear it anymore. He pulled back, found her lips with his and kissed her. Until they were both dizzy.

  He ran his thumb over her soft cheek. “You’re my world, Ivy. You and Dolly.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “And you’re the best man I’ve ever known. I want to be your wife, please.”

  “Is that a proposal?” he asked, chuckling at her artless assurance.

  The woman in his arms gave him a look that warmed all the cold places in his heart. “Take me home, Farrell, to your cabin in the woods. It’s where all good fairy tales start. We’ll live happily ever after.”

  “You can bet on it, my love. You can bet on it.”

  * * * * *

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  ISBN: 9781488062940

  Upstairs Downstairs Temptation

  Copyright © 2020 by Janice Maynard

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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

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  One kiss away—

  from getting burned again.

  I’m about to reunite with the lover from my past…

  But this time it’s strictly business!

  My career is taking off, thanks to my latest gig: cleaning up the image of one of Nashville’s hottest stars. The trouble is, songwriter Spencer Riggs and I were once lovers. I’m not the wild Alice McKenzie I was five years ago, but we can’t keep a lid on our reigniting desire. And there’s something Spencer isn’t telling me…

  “Truce?”

  Spencer lifted his eyebrows, making me wait for his reply. Was he going to tell me to get lost? Had I blown this job? Had my stupidity gotten in the way?

  “You’re something else,” he said a few heartbeats later. He didn’t sound amused. But he didn’t sound angry anymore, either. He expelled a breath and added, “But you always were feisty.”

  I used to be a full-on brat, but I wasn’t going to cop to it now. I flashed a hopeful smile. “You’re not firing me?”

  “I guess not.” He glanced at my lips, as if he was remembering the taste of them.

  He stood and walked over to the bar. Seconds ticked by, or maybe it was minutes. I wanted to break the silence, but I couldn’t think of an intelligible thing to say. I was remembering the taste of his lips, too.

  * * *

  Hot Nashville Nights by Sheri WhiteFeather

  is part of the Daughters of Country series.

  Dear Reader,

  Music has always been a significant part of my life. From the time I was a child, I didn’t just listen to my favorite songs, I was fascinated by the lyrics, hanging on every word.

  In this book, Hot Nashville Nights, the hero is a highly successful songwriter. His name is Spencer Riggs and his love interest is Alice McKenzie. Some of you might recall Alice from Nashville Secrets, my March 2019 Harlequin Desire. She was a secondary character in that story, creating a bit of havoc for her older sister.

  Alice is still struggling with issues from the past, and so is Spencer, the troubled songwriter stealing her heart. Together, they are filled with passion, much like the songs Spencer writes.

  Love and hugs,

  Sheri WhiteFeather

  Hot Nashville Nights

  Sheri WhiteFeather

  Sheri WhiteFeather is an award-winning bestselling author. She lives in Southern California and enjoys shopping in vintage stores and visiting art galleries and museums. She is known for incorporating Native American elements into her books and has two grown children who are tribally enrolled members of the Muscogee Creek Nation. Visit her website at www.sheriwhitefeather.com.

  Books by Sheri WhiteFeather

  Harlequin Desire

  Sons of Country

  Wrangling the Rich Rancher

  Nashville Rebel

  Nashville Secrets

  Daughters of Country

  Hot Nashville Nights

  Visit her Author Profile page at Harlequin.com or www.sheriwhitefeather.com for more titles.

  You can also find Sheri WhiteFeather on Facebook, along with othe
r Harlequin Desire authors, at Facebook.com/harlequindesireauthors!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  CHAPTER ONE

  Alice

  I parked at the end of Spencer Riggs’s long, narrow driveway and glanced out at the vine-covered arbor leading to his porch. Along the path, potted plants grew in colorful disarray, giving me a sense of elegant chaos.

  I was trying not to panic about this meeting, but Spencer was different from my other Nashville clients. He was a former lover of mine, a dark shadow from my past.

  Was it any wonder I was nervous?

  I stayed in my car for a few more minutes, still gazing out the windshield. The music industry adored Spencer, and so did the women in this town. According to the social media buzz, he was quite the catch. An award-winning songwriter with a reputation for being a creative genius. A handsome twenty-eight-year-old who lived in a beautifully renovated old house and rescued abused and abandoned dogs. Talk about a new life. He didn’t even have a goldfish when I knew him. He’d been working as a bartender back then, struggling to sell his songs.

  I’d heard rumors that he was considered unattainable now. Of course, that just made women want him all the more. But in spite of his female following, he kept his affairs private. No one was out there bragging about being with him. He wasn’t dropping names, either.

  I found that curious, considering my dirty-sex history with him. Our hookups only lasted a few months, but I’d never forgotten how wild he was in bed. Or how troubled he’d made me feel. During that time, I’d had all sorts of emotional problems, and my affair with him had only fueled the fire.