Abby laughed and leaped off her stool. "Oh, Grandmama, that was the best story I ever heard." She hugged herself.
"What tales do you spin for our granddaughter, wife?" He came around the chair and clasped her hand.
"No tales, only truth." Mackenzie smiled saucily. After all these years—after the wrinkles and the childbirth, Fire Dancer's mere presence still excited her.
"Grandmama?" Abby approached them, a board in her hand. "Is this sketch of Okonsa?"
Linked arm and arm, Mackenzie and Fire Dancer stared at the portrait.
"Ah, " Mackenzie said softly.
"I can't believe the wolves ate him," Abby breathed in awe.
Mackenzie's gaze met Fire Dancer's, hesitant. "Well, that was what we believed happened at the time."
Abby's black eyes widened. "He didn't die?"
Mackenzie smiled, memories tugging at her heart once more. She laced her fingers through Fire Dancer's. "You'll have to ask your mother about that, sweetheart."
Fire Dancer kissed Mackenzie full on the mouth.
Abby groaned and walked away. "Oh, yuck. Are you two going to start kissing again? My mama and dada are always kissing. Yuck." She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she left the room.
Mackenzie chuckled at her granddaughter and then turned to gaze into her husband's eyes. "You return early from hunting, husband."
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "This man missed the warmth of his lodge." He slapped her playfully on her bottom. "And the warmth of his woman."
Mackenzie laughed and whispered with a wink. "Then come to our bed and let me warm you."
About the Author
Colleen French has been selling and publishing books under various pseudonyms for more than twenty-five years and sold her first novel at the age of 23. With over 150 titles and millions of books in print, she's written mysteries, suspense, historical romances and contemporary romances worldwide, and has been published in languages such as French, German, Bulgarian, Dutch and Chinese, among others. While she's written in many genres, her roots and her first love will always be in romance. Writing seems to be in her genes. She's the daughter of best-selling author Judith E. French and grew up listening to the sound of her mother's typewriter late at night. When not writing, Colleen likes to read a good book on the beach. She can be reached at [email protected] or on Facebook.
Please turn the page for
an exciting sneak preview of
Judith E. French's
historical romance
McKenna's Bride
Prologue
County Clare, Ireland
Autumn 1846
C aitlin McKenna crumpled the letter in her hands and stared over the edge of the sheer precipice at the storm-tossed Atlantic below. Seabirds wheeled above the cliff, adding their haunting cries to the crashing of waves against jagged rocks. A raw blast of wind ripped Caitlin’s linen cap away and tore loose her hairpins so that her auburn tresses tumbled gypsylike around her face and shoulders. Mist swirled around her, enveloping her in a cloak of opalescence. And a single tear trickled down her cheek.
“You’re alive.”
The rising gale tugged at the stained paper, but Caitlin held it in a death grip. She swallowed to relieve the aching lump in her throat and read Shane’s letter again. The message was short, almost abrupt. She had gone over it so many times that she could have recited the words without looking.
Shane was alive.
He wanted her to join him in America.
Caitlin pulled her woolen shawl tighter around her shoulders and tried to picture her husband’s face as she had last seen him. His blond hair, twinkling blue-gray eyes, and warm smile formed in her mind’s eye. She could even picture his square, dimpled chin and the sensual lips that had captured hers so sweetly. Handsome as a fallen angel was Shane McKenna and put together as well as the good Lord could create an Irishman. And then to add to the package, the Almighty had given him a deep, husky voice that could charm the birds from the trees . . . as he’d charmed her.
“Seven years!” she cried angrily. “Seven long years without so much as a word.”
She’d been but seventeen when she’d defied her family and her church to elope with Shane McKenna on the eve of his departure for the American frontier. That was a lifetime ago . . . before the potato crops had withered and turned to blackened slime . . . before her parents had died and her sister’s husband Thomas had been bludgeoned to death by a starving mob.
“Damn your black Irish heart, Shane McKenna!”
From the first day she’d laid eyes on him—barefoot and raggedy as a tinker’s lad—setting rabbit snares in her father’s woods, Shane had stolen her heart. He was her secret friend, her darling, the only man she’d ever wanted.
He’d promised that he’d send for her as soon as he earned her passage money. He’d promised that he’d write to her. And he’d betrayed both vows.
“Lies, lies!” she shouted into the wind.
Shane. Shane. Surely no woman had ever loved as she loved him. And surely, no wife had been as loyal. She’d waited and prayed for a letter, watched for the sight of him strolling up her father’s lane whistling a merry tune.
But Shane had abandoned her, left her to face her family’s anger and disappointment alone, left her to pretend that she didn’t hear the sly whispers of her neighbors.
Now when she’d all but gotten over him, her husband had summoned her. He wanted her. The trouble was, she didn’t know if she still wanted him.
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