She took a shaky breath. “To be completely accurate, Nero might have been strumming the lyre and not the cithara.”
“Daisy, I’m not staying down here forever.”
As the situation registered, she pulled him up and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Are you sure about this?”
His expression twisted. “So-so.”
“Good enough. Can we get out of this drizzle now?”
“I think it’s sexy and romantic.”
“There’s nothing sexy or romantic about cold and wet.”
“I was thinking about the hot shower after we strip off our clothes.”
“Well, yeah, when you put it that way.” Daisy looked at Max as if seeing him for the first time. The glow from the streetlights illuminated his face; love illuminated his eyes. She felt warm all over.
“Babe, I can put it however you like.”
Daisy laughed, but inside she tingled. “You promised me a hot shower.”
As down payment on the hot part of that promise, he seriously kissed her; then lacing her fingers with his, he hurried them down the street.
Turns out Charity was right. The stars, the reviews, her golden spoon—Daisy had everything back. None of it the same. All of it better.
Daisy glanced at her future husband—a sinfully delicious man who was familiar with a cithara.
How lucky can one chef get?
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek at
Maggie McConnell’s next Otter Bite romance
EMBRACING FELICITY
coming in November 2016 wherever ebooks are sold!
Chapter One
“C’mon, Dad, you’re sooo slow!”
“Wait ‘til you’re forty,” Ian MacIntyre mumbled, hiking with ten-year-old Emily to the end of Bobrovie Spit. Twenty minutes earlier they’d been dropped off at the trailhead by Victor Dudnik, Otter Bite’s postmaster, plumber, and occasional cabbie.
Ian and Em had flown over this spit, but until today had never walked it. Flanked on each side by a beach, the mile stretch resembled a soup spoon: broad at the attached end, then long and narrow before it spread into an eight-acre oval patch that supported thigh-high grasses and a grove of venerable Sitka Spruce. From the clouds, this trek looked easy. On the ground, the trail was plagued with ruts, roots, and rocks that only a Dall sheep—or we’an—could navigate.
“Wait up, Pup.”
One hundred feet in front, Emily turned to Ian, but instead of stopping she walked backward. “We have to be there by eight!”
Pushing up his sleeves, Ian checked his platinum Omega. “Em, it’s barely seven thirty.”
She spun forward and kept going and going and going . . .
They had plenty of time. Despite their late takeoff from Merrill Field in Anchorage. Despite the headwind between Kenai and Otter Bite. Despite scrambling for alternate transportation when the Jeep he’d been promised wasn’t at the landing strip.
Passing a second No Trespassing sign, Ian spread the zipper on his fleece jacket and stepped up the pace. Breathing in the chilly May morning air, he exhaled wisps.
The sun had been shining for two hours, but with formidable mountains to conquer, it was only now showing its face to Otter Bite. In Alaska, however, the summer sun was rarely below the horizon.
Mist rose off the calm bays and vanished into crystal air seasoned with salt and flavored with fish. Waves softly lapped the beach, retreating into a low tide that, in another hour, would expose clams and mussels on the muddy sea bottom. Bald eagles reigned from the tops of spruce that pierced the sky like castle spires. Below, like peasants, squawking seagulls scavenged in the wet sand, their footprints disappearing behind them.
Everything in this moment reminded Ian of the seaside village on Scotland’s west coast where his maternal grandparents had a summer estate.
“Dad!”
Well, almost everything.
Looking back, Emily stamped her foot. “Hurry! Up!”
“I should’ve given y’ to Granny when I had the chance,” Ian mumbled, passing a third, hand-painted warning. He’d underestimated the toll of this trek when he rented the house. Hiking one mile through nature was a lot tougher than jogging three miles on a treadmill.
Pausing to enjoy the view, he spotted the Kachemak Princess. Sailing from Homer—where access by road ended—the 150-passenger ferry coursed through open water toward the rocky promontory known as Mermaid Point. Behind that landmark, tucked into Sedna Bay, was Otter Bite and the catamaran’s first port; from there it would dock at Halibut Cove, Seldovia, Nanwalek, and, finally, Port Graham before reversing the route and returning to Homer in the evening. Last winter he and Em had taken that ferry and visited those coastal villages, all originally Alutiiq settlements. On every sailing, she had pressed the rail.
Emily loved the ocean, but any water would do. As a toddler, she’d kicked and screamed when he lifted her from the bath. Though she be but little, she is fierce, his mum liked to say of Emily. She’d be swimming in the bay right now if it weren’t a heart-stopping forty degrees. And she was fast, really fast. One day his little mermaid would be sporting Olympic gold.
“Dad! Orcas!”
The black and white bodies with the tall dorsal fins were unmistakable. As they cruised past, Ian counted five. A little too close for his comfort, but surrounded by postcard-perfect scenery, he sometimes forgot that Alaska was wild down to her knickers.
“Good eye, Pup!” Ian called back. Emily glowed. When the pod turned for open water, he sensed her yearning to be swimming with the whales.
Emily’s aquatic gene hadn’t come from him. Sure, he lounged poolside in Monte Carlo and enjoyed the knee-high surf at Waikoloa; he’d even barreled down Disney World’s Summit Plummet water slide. Nonetheless, when it came to the deep, he was chicken of the sea.
But he’d found a way to give Emily the ocean without setting foot in it. Suddenly he was as impatient as she to reach their beach house. However rocky their morning had been—and this trail in particular—no more obstacles lay in their path. This was the first day of a summer they would remember for the rest of their lives.
“There it is!” Emily pointed to a stone cottage topped with blue shakes that peeked between towering spruce trees. “Look!”
Ian was looking, but that was not it. The cottage was quaint, as far as he could see, and cozy, but it was definitely not the home he’d paid $2,800 to rent for the summer. Where was the modern, two-story cedar house with expansive decks and eight-person hot tub he’d seen on the internet? All these two properties shared were the views.
Had he gotten the directions wrong? How many Bobrovie spits could there be?
“Emily, wait!” Ian shouted as she abandoned the path and waded into spears of tall grass. Three No Trespassing signs weren’t exactly an invitation to visit. Who knew who lived here or how welcoming they’d be? Alaska wasn’t called The Last Frontier for nothing.
But Emily ran toward that cottage as if the Seven Dwarfs were inside to greet her.
Ian chased her, cursing his Gucci loafers when sand and pebbles got inside and assaulted his feet.
It’s not the mountain in front of you; it’s the pebble in your shoe.
Not now, Mum.
“Emily!” Losing sight of her, Ian hopped with one shoe while emptying the other. A pair of ravens swooped low, flapping and screeching. “Bloody hell!” Shooing them away, he cast his loafer at them; an eagle snatched it mid-air and flew off. “What the—” But he didn’t have time to dwell; the ravens were back, diving and soaring like Spitfires. He dropped to his knees and ducked, arms up, to protect his face and head.
“Oy! Leave those ravens alone!”
It took a moment, then Ian looked up and peered around. The birds were gone, as if he’d imagined them. Cautiously relaxing his arms, he stood and tried to regain his dignity. He felt like a real poindexter.
It didn’t help that the woman chastising him looked like an airbrushed centerfold.
“You should be ashamed, harassing helpless birds.”
“Helpless? Those bloody corbies attacked me!”
Buckshot unnecessary. She could chase this Scot off with a flyswatter.
“Then an eagle stole my shoe!”
Felicity lodged hands on her hips. “How? At gunpoint?”
Ian started to say he had thrown it at the ravens, but considering her sarcasm . . . His eye caught the splatters on his shoulder and arm. With growling disgust, he tugged off his soiled fleece jacket.
Reaching out, she huffed. “Give it here.”
Instead, Ian gingerly rolled his jacket inside out and draped it over his elbow. “It’s a Patagonia.”
A two-second stare. “Suit yourself.”
With as much dignity as his shoeless foot allowed, Ian marched to the thirty-something stunner who stood on the deck. Glancing at her bare feet, he momentarily drew a blank, then he looked up at the woman who was looking down on him—in more ways than one, he suspected. “What’ve you done with my daughter?”
Felicity jerked back. “What have I done with her? I lured her into my gingerbread cottage and stuffed her in my oven, what else?”
“How is that funny?”
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, she’s using the bathroom. And by the way, you’re trespassing, so lose the attitude.”
“I’m not trespassing. I rented this place for the summer.”
She snorted. “I don’t think so.”
“Is this Bobrovie Spit?”
“Anyone who rented this place for the summer would know that it is.”
“I have a lease.”
Her brows jumped. “Show me.”
“Actually . . .” The document was in his briefcase safe in his Cessna along with their luggage. “It’s in my plane.”
“Sure it is.”
“I didn’t think I’d need it.”
“Because I’m too stupid to know who I rent my cabin to?”
“Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull—”
“What I’m trying to pull?”
The melancholy blast of a ship’s horn drifted across Kachemak Bay; the ferry was arriving in Otter Bite. Pulling her eyes from Ian, Felicity gazed past him toward Mermaid Point. After a disappointed sigh, she looked expectantly at him. “You were about to say?”
Usually Ian could wield words like a Samurai wielded swords, but he’d been rendered dumb . . . and felt even dumber. First, the ravens and eagle, now this cheeky chick. Thankfully Emily hadn’t witnessed his fowl encounters.
“Dad!” Emily raced around the corner, footsteps pattering the weathered planks. Her sneakers squealed when she slammed on the brakes. “Come see the otters! They’re cramazing!”
“We’re leaving.” He targeted Felicity. “For now.”
“We just got here!”
“And now we’re going.” Face-to-face with four-foot-three Emily, who stood on the two-foot-high deck. “Don’t argue.”
Pleading eyes shot to Felicity.
“It’s okay,” Felicity said. “You can visit another day, after your dad has found his shoe”—she focused on Ian—“and lost his attitude.”
“My attitude is appropriate to this situation.” Grabbing Emily from the deck, he set her on the ground. “And don’t be tellin’ my daughter what she can do.”
“Where’s your shoe?” Emily asked, staring at his feet.
“Never you mind. Let’s go.”
“But we live here—”
“That’s right—” He whipped his finger at Felicity, who flinched. “I want my money back.”
“What money?”
“The twenty-eight hundred I paid for summer rent.”
Felicity’s luscious lips parted and her jaw dropped.
“Not only is this place like a chapter out of Zoo, it’s completely different than the house you advertised! Where’s the second story and the hot tub? I’m of a mind to sue you for false advertising!” Ian spun around and steered his daughter into the tall grass toward the path.
“Hold on,” Felicity said.
Feeling smug, Ian stopped. Turning, he aimed his fully-loaded. 45-caliber expression at Felicity. She appeared unimpressed; if anything, she seemed . . . sympathetic?
“I don’t know who you gave money to—”
“Don’t play dumb with me. I handed a check to your father, Dr. Bricker.”
“I don’t know any Dr. Bricker; my father is an attorney. Either this is all a terrible mistake—”
“And you, miss, are the one making it. You have no clue with whom you’re dealing. Are you returning my money?” He carefully unrolled his soiled jacket and pulled his cellphone from an inside pocket. “Or am I calling the authorities?”
“Doubtful. No local authorities or cell service.”
Ian inflated at yet another lie. “Your ad promised phone and internet.”
“The same ad for the two-story house with the hot tub?” She took a deep, calming breath. “You can use my satellite phone to call the state troopers. Fourteen dollars a minute. Cash up front. While you’re at it, feel free to report the eagle. Maybe provide a description? Height, weight, feather color?” She bobbed her head. “Tattoos?”
Ian felt like a firecracker with a faulty fuse. “Oh, for the love of—” He stuffed his phone back into its pocket and gruffly re-rolled his jacket.
Felicity glanced at Emily, whose eyes were wide and frightened. With her forefinger, she beckoned Ian to come closer.
Ian warily looked around. “What?”
“We’re scaring your daughter. Holster your bravado and come here . . . please.” That took effort. But his shoulders sagged just enough to inspire Felicity’s compassion.
Ian stepped tentatively toward the deck. When he was near enough to whiff Felicity’s fresh, breezy scent, she bent over. Suddenly he was facing unfettered breasts as formidable as the Alaska Range.
You’re wrong, Mum; it’s the peaks not the pebbles.
Pulling his eyes away from Felicity’s distracting cleavage, he stepped back for perspective.
“I’m sorry, little girl’s dad, but—”
“I don’t want your apology. I want my money or the house you advertised.” He stared into irises the color of his mother’s favorite aquamarine broach. “I’m not some cheechako, fresh off the ferry for you to scam.”
“Hate to tell you,” she said softly. “But I think you sorta are.”
Photo credit: Portrait Park by J
Golden Heart nominee Maggie McConnell spent her childhood overseas as the daughter of US diplomats. Attending college in Illinois, she earned a BA in art and an MBA while working at the local animal shelter. At twenty-six, she packed her dog and cat into a Ford truck and drove the Alcan Highway to Alaska, where she spent twenty-three years exploring the Last Frontier in single-engine Cessnas. An animal-rights advocate and vegan, Maggie provides a sanctuary on her Arizona ranch for all creatures great and small. Every year, like the gray whale, she returns to Alaska. Readers can visit her website at www.MaggieMcConnellRomance.com
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
LYRICAL SHINE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
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Copyright © 2016 by Margaret Shelton McConnell
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in re
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Lyrical Shine and Lyrical Shine logo are trademarks of Kensington Publishing Corp.
First Electronic Edition: June 2016
ISBN: 978-1-6018-3686-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-60183-687-8
ISBN-10: 1-60183-687-2
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