And so it was, from that day forward.
Woven through with that bright love, boundless laughter, and the flame that burned hotter in both of them, one season after the next, until it felt like fate, after all.
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ISBN-13: 9781488071959
Kidnapped by the Viking
Copyright © 2021 by Caitlin Crews
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.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book, please contact us at [email protected].
Harlequin Enterprises ULC
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Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada
www.Harlequin.com
Twins of the Twenties
Bright, young bachelors find love in New York
Brothers Patrick and Connor McCormick aren’t alike in just looks—their rebellious spirits mean they’ve both left the prestigious family business behind to forge their own paths in life...
New York cop Patrick devotes his life to helping others, but the one woman who can help him overcome his demons is on the wrong side of the law!
Businessman Connor’s playboy reputation precedes him and there’s not a woman in New York who can tempt him to settle down...until his high school sweetheart returns!
Join these bachelors of the Roaring Twenties as they take New York by storm in
Scandal at the Speakeasy
and
A Proposal for the Unwed Mother
Both available now!
Author Note
Welcome to the second book of the Twins of the Twenties duet. A Proposal for the Unwed Mother is Connor and his high school sweetheart Jenny’s story. The two of them need to figure out what went wrong in the past so they can focus on their happily-ever-after.
I hope you enjoy Connor and Jenny’s story!
A Proposal for the Unwed Mother
Lauri Robinson
A lover of fairy tales and history, Lauri Robinson can’t imagine a better profession than penning happily-ever-after stories about men and women in days gone past. Her favorite settings include World War II, the Roaring Twenties and the Old West. Lauri and her husband raised three sons in their rural Minnesota home and are now getting their just rewards by spoiling their grandchildren. Visit her at laurirobinson.blogspot.com, Facebook.com/lauri.robinson1 or Twitter.com/laurir.
Books by Lauri Robinson
Harlequin Historical
Diary of a War Bride
A Family for the Titanic Survivor
Twins of the Twenties
Scandal at the Speakeasy
A Proposal for the Unwed Mother
Sisters of the Roaring Twenties
The Flapper’s Fake Fiancé
The Flapper’s Baby Scandal
The Flapper’s Scandalous Elopement
Brides of the Roaring Twenties
Baby on His Hollywood Doorstep
Stolen Kiss with the Hollywood Starlet
Oak Grove
Mail-Order Brides of Oak Grove
“Surprise Bride for the Cowboy”
Winning the Mail-Order Bride
In the Sheriff’s Protection
Visit the Author Profile page
at Harlequin.com for more titles.
Dedicated to my sister-in-law, Jeannette—because she’s amazing. Love you!
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
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
CHAPTER ONE
1927
Connor McCormick let out a curse and wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of one hand before he turned around, needing more pushing power. He grasped ahold of the bumper, braced his legs, and put his back up against his car. A Packard Phaeton, red and black, without a scratch on her. That was about to change if he couldn’t get the damn thing off the tracks before that train whistle got any closer!
The long, low-riding chassis of the four-door sports model had become high centered on the railroad tracks, in the middle of nowhere. There were plenty of places like this in upstate New York, where the farms were miles upon miles apart, nearly cut off from the rest of the world by rutted and narrow gravel roads. That’s why he was here, to bring these people a connection to family, friends and the world via his phone company. He’d already sold lines to three farms, and needed to sell at least a dozen more to make stringing the lines profitable, and he needed his car in order to do that!
He would call about this crossing as soon as possible. Tell the county that the spring rains had washed away most of the gravel, leaving the tracks exposed for any car to get stuck on. People could get killed!
The train blew its horn again. He couldn’t see it coming around the bend, but the ground beneath his feet was vibrating. He dug his heels deep into the gravel, drew in a deep breath that was full of the scents of the white pines and Norway spruce trees blocking his view of the oncoming train and pushed against the car so hard he growled at the exertion.
With a scraping of metal on metal, the car rolled, just an inch, but it was all he needed. Heaving in a fortifying breath, he put everything he had into giving the car another hard push.
More metal-on-metal scraping sounded. So did another grunt, and just as he was about to give in long enough to suck in more air, the car broke loose and rolled over the tracks.
“Yes!” He ran, jumped in the open door, engaged the clutch and hit the ignition. The engine roared to life and he laid his foot on the gas. The tires kicked up gravel as the car shot forward, just as the train horn blared again and the locomotive rounded the curve at full speed, a mere five yards behind him.
The car’s top was down, and Connor kept his foot on the gas pedal to outrun the cloud of dust caused by his tires and the train. Exhilaration filled him. Life was f
ull of challenges, and he thrived on them. Even being high centered on the railroad tracks.
Slapping the wheel, thrilled he’d won against that could-be disaster, he steered, along the winding road that would lead him to more houses where he would convince people they needed a telephone from the Rural Rochester Telephone Company.
The very company he’d started several years ago, and continued to grow each and every year since then.
He loved his life, he loved his automobile, he loved his family and friends, and the list of dolls who were always ready and willing to spend an evening of fun with him, but most of all, he loved his phone company. He’d been enthralled with phones from the time he’d been a small child, and wouldn’t change anything about his life. It was downright perfect.
The sun was shining, the sky bright blue, and whistling a tune, Connor drove the Phaeton along the dirt road, looking for the next driveway, the next farm that he’d convince they needed a phone line, one he’d gladly provide. For pennies on the dollar.
That was the best part. Unlike other companies, his phone lines were affordable, and the profit he made provided him a good living. The larger, more expensive companies had a monopoly on the city markets, had for years, that’s why, right from the get-go, he’d focused on the rural areas.
It had paid off; every year he’d expanded lines, expanded his business, farther outside of Rochester, and his goal this year was to run lines all the way to Syracuse. It was a hundred miles, and there were enough farms along the way that needed phones to make it profitable, even if he just signed up half of the farms. He’d already expanded lines that far in all other directions from Rochester, and was confident in his ability to complete this route.
He’d gotten a later start in searching out new customers than he’d intended, but only by a couple of weeks. It was still April, giving him plenty of time to get people signed up and all the lines run long before the ground froze again next winter. His brother Mick had asked him to hang around Rochester in case their mother needed anything while Mick had gone to Missouri. That still seemed odd to Connor. How Mick had taken it upon himself to travel across the nation to haul home a girl to see her dying father.
He and Mick were twins, but they certainly weren’t two peas in a pod. The two of them were more like corn and beans. Mick being the beans. He was a good guy, but hard to crack. The reason. Because he was the oldest. Older by fifteen minutes, but those fifteen minutes had defined both of their lives. Mick’s role of the oldest meant he had to follow in their father’s footsteps. Their father had been a hard shell, too. It was a McCormick trait, or curse.
Connor had often felt bad because he’d been allowed to spend summers as he’d pleased, play with friends after school, go to parties on weekends when they got older, date girls, while Mick had been expected to work at the family business every summer and on weekends, all in preparation to take over the helm someday.
That someday hadn’t happened. Their father had died while they’d been seniors in high school, and the family, namely their uncles, had declared Mick wasn’t old enough to run the company.
Mick, being Mick, had found a way to still be active in the business, while continuing his own goal of becoming a police officer. He was now a detective, one of the best, if not the best in Rochester, and Connor couldn’t be happier for his brother. Or more proud of Mick. They both wished their father hadn’t died, but if he hadn’t, Mick’s life would have been a lot different.
Connor’s wouldn’t have been all that different. He’d been able to pursue his dream from day one—that of owning a phone company.
The only thing that would have changed his life was a girl. Jenny Sommers. She’d been the prettiest girl in school, with dark brown hair and big coffee-colored eyes. Hardly a day went by that he didn’t wonder what had happened, where she’d ended up, how she was doing.
He tried not to think about her, but Jenny was always at the back of his mind. Which was why he preferred to think about Mick, or his friends, or the dolls he knew, or his phone company. Anything but Jenny.
It had been seven years, so not thinking about her should be possible.
The mailbox that came into view as he drove around a curve brought his attention back to where it should be. He downshifted and applied the brakes enough to turn into the driveway. Just like they’d lined the curving road, long-needled white pines and big Norway spruce trees, with their huge boughs creating a canopy for shorter vegetation of weeds and shrubbery, were on both sides of the driveway.
No house was in view because the driveway curved to the left and Connor kept his speed low. Prohibition was in full force, and while selling his phone lines, he’d been met by more than one shotgun-wielding homeowner who was diligent in keeping federal agents off their land.
So far, he hadn’t been shot at, and he wanted to keep it that way.
The road widened out after the curve. A large farmhouse, painted red with a green shingled roof, wide shutters and a lengthy front porch, was surrounded by several flower beds, hosting an array of colorful spring flowers like he’d never seen. There were also two large sheds and an older-model truck with a wooden box parked in the shade of two large cedar trees.
Connor didn’t see any movement, other than the clothes flapping in the wind on the clothesline near the far side of the house.
He pulled his car up to where the gravel stopped and the grass started and shut off the engine, while scanning the entire area closely for a shotgun-wielding homeowner.
None came into view, but he still used caution as he opened the door and slowly made his way up to the house. The entire area was clean and orderly. That, along with the clothes hanging off the lines stretched between two poles, told him there was definitely a woman in residence. They often took to the idea of a telephone more quickly than men. Or maybe they were just more likely to fall for his charm. He’d never had an issue of turning it on when the need arose.
With his telephone spiel well memorized, he pulled up a dazzling smile and knocked on the screen door.
A moment later, the house door was opened by a young woman.
“Good afterrrnoooon,” the word stretched out as his breath slowly left him. Stunned and questioning if he was seeing things, he pulled open the screen door. Was his mind playing tricks on him because he’d just been thinking about her, or was it really her? “Jenny?”
The house door slammed shut so fast there wasn’t time to react.
Other than to realize it had been her! Jenny Sommers. He hadn’t seen her in seven years, but even after a hundred years, he’d know her face. She’d looked as shocked as a deer bounding onto a road with oncoming traffic, and had responded just as quickly.
Grasping the doorknob, he tried turning it. “Jenny! Jenny! It’s Connor. Connor McCormick!”
The door was locked.
Locked or not, he kept trying to twist the knob with one hand and he knocked on the door with the other.
Again, and again, until he was pounding on the door as hard as his heart pounded inside his chest. “Jenny! Jenny!”
He’d never admit that his heart had been broken, because he was the fun-loving, always happy, Connor McCormick, but the closest it had ever come had been when Jenny had left town. Vanished without a word. He’d questioned her mother, who had merely said that Jenny had moved away, to live with family. Despite his attempts to find out more, he’d failed.
Failed for months.
Then his father had died, which had been another crushing blow, but life had gone on. Had to. He’d had to go on, without looking back.
He had gone on. For a long time.
He pounded harder on the door.
His heart nearly stopped when he heard a click and felt the knob turn. “Jen...” He paused, stared at the older woman who’d pulled open the door.
“What is it you need?” she asked.
Other t
han her long brown hair braided and hanging over one shoulder, the woman was built as close to a man as he’d ever seen. She looked about as friendly as a shotgun-wielding landowner, too.
Connor shifted to look over her shoulder. “The other woman, the one who opened the door a moment ago—”
“I am the homeowner.” The woman’s green eyes narrowed as her pointed chin stuck out a bit farther. “State your business.”
There was no one behind the woman, nothing to see except a living room. “I’m with the Rural Rochester Telephone Company and...” Connor’s thoughts stalled. Whether it was the unfriendliness of the woman, or knowing that Jenny was in that house, his often used and well-known spiel escaped him.
“I don’t have a telephone,” the woman said.
“I know, I’m here to uh—” He shook his head. It was no use trying. His mind couldn’t focus on phones. “The other woman, the one who first opened the door, her name is Jenny, isn’t it?”
“Good day.” Stepping back, she swung the door.
Connor stuck his foot in before the door slammed shut. “A telephone line will be run past your property in the near future and I can offer you—”
“No, thank you.”
“Having a telephone installed could—”
“I said, no thank you, now kindly remove your foot or I will use Old Bess.” While speaking, she reached over and picked up a double-barrel shotgun that must have a permanent spot next to the front door.
Connor had no doubt the woman would use it. Stout and stern, she’d probably used the gun before—on man and beast. He pulled his foot away from the door, but held it open with one hand long enough to say, “Would you please tell Jenny that I’ve always hoped to see her again.”
The woman provided no response, other than to shut the door.
Harlequin Historical May 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 Page 47