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Floating Hearts
MacKay Destiny #1
By
Kate Richards
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Epilogue
About Kate Richards
Also by Kate Richards
Don’t Miss These Other Billionaire Universe Tales
Dear Readers,
I hope you enjoy this contribution to Melody Anne’s Billionaire Universe. Kindle Worlds are so much fun to write in, and it’s hard to find a more fun genre than this one. What parent doesn’t want their children to grow up and meet the person who can make them happy. And maybe bring beautiful grandchildren into the family! But sometimes people can come awfully close to making a big mistake, and when that happens, grab the first big, red heart-shaped balloon you can find and sail away to find Mr. Right. Of course that can leave a lot of loose ends and maybe thing will not turn out the way you’d hoped…but maybe they will.
We can just hope for the best!
I love to hear from readers so if you would like to drop me a line and let me know what you think of Floating Hearts, my email is [email protected] Reviews are also very gratefully accepted.
Take care,
Kate Richards
USA Today Bestselling Author
Floating Hearts
She had to fly…
Perhaps Sarabeth Harvest might have chosen another way to escape from her wedding than the prototype electronic balloon about to be revealed to the public by her billionaire fiancé. And maybe the incredibly sexy man who rescued her from the apple tree wasn’t the answer to a fleeing bride’s prayers. But how was she to resist someone who made her pulse race the moment she met him? A woman who’s just jilted her boss in front of all of San Francisco society has nowhere to go, except where the winds take her.
He’s a Type A Plus self-made billionaire…
And well on the way to destroying his health in his race to success. Is it his fault if the woman who lands in his family’s orchard thinks James MacKay is a farmer? From the moment she tumbles from the sky into his arms, Sarabeth makes her preference for a working man clear. When she learns his secret, she will leave anyway. She has a history of running away from billionaires.
Can destiny and true love overcome…
The multiple reasons why they shouldn’t fall in love? The fire between Sarabeth and James blazes to life instantly, but she’s looking for a blue-collar guy and he isn’t looking for anyone. And her fiancé might be on the way to try to get her—and his balloon—back. When James learns who he is, it will blow the lid off everything. Add in a meddling mama who doesn’t want to give up on the perfect daughter-in-law to create a perfect storm. Maybe it’s time to walk away. Or maybe what is between James and Sarabeth might be so huge it will burn off all the negativity.
Prologue
Margerie Felix settled at the table in the sunny breakfast room and passed a platter of bacon to her husband. “Enjoy, we’re only having bacon one day this week.”
John glowered at her. “What if I insist?”
“Doctor Carter said we have to eat healthier if we want to live long enough to have grandchildren. With everything going on with the boys, we might have to hold out for a while.”
Holding her gaze, Margerie’s husband of nearly twenty-eight years lifted a piece of bacon to his lips and bit down. He closed his eyes in ecstasy and sighed. “At least it’s just the way I like it. Nice and crisp.”
“I try to do things the way you like them.” She gave him a wink, and he grinned in return. She wanted to pinch herself some days to be sure the reality she lived was not a dream. Her husband was still the sexiest man she’d ever met, tall, lean, and with deep-brown bedroom eyes that made her tummy flip when he gave her that special “look.”
She’d been a starving artist when they met, selling her paintings on the street and very nearly being arrested in the process when she’d met the youthful heir to the Felix conglomerate and lost her heart to this kind, somewhat driven man.
“Did you cook this yourself?” he queried, taking another bite.
“I did.” She poured their cups full of coffee from the post on the table and pushed the sugar bowl toward him. “Sometimes I miss doing things. I didn’t grow up in a big house with servants as you know. My mom trained me to cook and keep house. Sometimes I just want to do those things for you.”
He dipped his toast into a sunny-side up egg and laid a bit of bacon on top. “The perfect bite, and even more perfect because you made it. I confess, I like it when you cook for me. I just don’t want you to feel you have to.”
She snorted. “The staff practically blocks the door when I try. I assure you I do not think I am required to wait on you. It’s my pleasure, though.”
John pushed his chair back and held out his arms. “There’s a lot of pleasure in our marriage.” She settled on his lap and laid her cheek on his chest, enfolded in her beloved husband’s embrace. “Sometimes I forget just how lucky we are.”
She tilted her face up and smiled at him. “Finding the right person in a world of billions of the wrong ones is something to be very grateful for. After yesterday, I’m a little shaken. I confess I never saw that coming. Trey must be crushed.”
“He’ll have to pull it together and look to the future,” John replied. “Someone has to carry on the family name, and that flighty girl couldn’t get away from him fast enough. What kind of woman doesn’t recognize the quality husband our Trey would be?”
Margerie patted his hand and grabbed a toast triangle from his plate. She chewed in silence for a moment then responded, “The wrong one for him. But I’m thinking we might have another hope for her. That balloon she flew off in? It’s headed straight for Cedar Valley.”
“What are you up to? And how did you make it go there?”
“Oh, my dear, I don’t know how electronic things work. I do know they have two remote controls, however. One that stays with the balloon and another that doesn’t.”
“Margerie, I know you liked Sarabeth, but you can’t just hand her from one man to the next until you find a match that works.”
She offered him her prettiest smile and a kiss on the cheek then stood up. “Of course not, my dear. Just eat your breakfast before it gets cold and I’ll get some more hot coffee from the kitchen.”
“I can just ring for Teri…” He shook his head. “I love you.”
She scooted for the door, dressed in a silk lounging robe purchased on their last trip to China and slippers she’d bought in Paris, but, inside, every bit the Cedar Valley girl who’d fled to the big city to pursue a dream and landed in the arms of a man beyond her wildest dreams.
Chapter One
“Jim, there’s a great big heart-shaped balloon headed your way. Could you keep an eye out?”
“A what?” James MacKay grabbed his watch from the nightstand and squinted at the time. “It’s five o’clock in the morning, and I don’t have to get up for…well, for a half hour. Maybe you’d like to explain why a runaway balloon is an issue. And did you say heart-shaped?”
“Ten-four, good buddy.” His cousin Aiden’s warm chuckle held none of its charm when James had been awake most of the night tossing and turning about a problem with a foreign acquisition. “And it’s red.”
“Why are you talking like a truck driver? You’re a firefighter. You know that right?”
“Firefighter instructor. Man, you are not a morning person, are you? Ever since you got back from the city, you’ve been a total lay-abed grump.”
James kicked the covers back and pushed himself out of bed with a jaw-cracking yawn. “Look, I don’t know what kind of prank you’re pulling this time, but as a first responder, you should be a little more careful with rumors. If a heart-shaped balloon floats past, I’ll try and grab it for your sweetheart, whoever that might be. Okay? Now go away.” He padded toward the bathroom, still clutching the phone and already mentally laying out his day. The office would be humming soon, and he could only telecommute a few days a month. At best.
“Jim, don’t hang up—I haven’t told you the rest.”
Setting the phone on the sink, he grabbed his toothbrush and turned on the shower. “I’m sure it can wait until I have coffee. I’ll buy you all the balloons you want, if you’ll just leave me alone long enough to get started with my day. I have a meeting in forty minutes. Good-bye, Cousin.” Nothing had changed. In Cedar Valley, a balloon floating by would get the telephone trees buzzing. He had a business to run and one to babysit—to his great annoyance.
He disconnected without waiting for a reply and moved through his morning routine, smoothly as always, going over his schedule with his PA who actually had most of the company convinced he sat behind his desk in San Francisco, in his high-rise office with the view of the Golden Gate Bridge and points beyond, when fog did not obscure it. And he had no problem with the view or the office.
In fact, the room where he sat in his Cedar Valley getaway, smack-dab in the middle of the family nursery, was identical to his office in the city, including the “windows” behind his desk with their ability to change from the rolling hillsides behind the cabin to a live view from his office. Although just a short helicopter ride from the roof of the building bearing his name, the paradise of quiet and sanity created at his doctor’s insistence stood a world away.
He’d had the cabin constructed of logs once part of several smaller structures about to be bulldozed to make way for condos in a bedroom community outside Sacramento. Over 175 years old, they held enough history in their Gold Rush-era lengths to make his home far more valuable than any other building in Cedar Valley. Yet, he’d picked them up for a song. Their grayed splendor fit into the countryside as if they’d been there since the massive trunks themselves were felled.
And inside, his architect had created the kind of luxurious cabin space where he could entertain business associates or friends or merely be by himself without need of staff underfoot. While he did, of course, employ a cleaning service when not in residence, he preferred the quiet and solitude. Although he hated to admit it, and worked long days even when here, his evenings were his own, and each visit left him feeling a bit more relaxed.
His father, dear man though he was, never treated his billionaire son any different from the other three boys, all by his stepmother, Autumn. The trio worked for Dad and fulfilled his dream of a family nursery dynasty. Yesterday afternoon, when they’d all piled in the truck and headed out for a few days of camping, his father left James, founder of a multinational corporation with offices in twelve countries and so many subsidiaries even he had trouble keeping them straight sometimes, head nurseryman in his absence.
After his two meetings, he instructed his PA to hold all calls until mid-afternoon and left his office. Wearing jeans worn nearly white and comfortable—from a basket of his old things Autumn brought over—a CV Nursery logo polo shirt, and the work boots he kept here, he headed out the back door. Having just finalized the arrangements for the purchase of a company worth the GNP of a small country, he had to check on a half-dozen gardeners and the roadside stand his dad loved so much. David, Sr. adored creating new varieties of vegetables and fruits, and the results were eagerly sought-after by the locals.
Slapping a straw hat on his head to keep the sun off, he climbed into the Kawasaki Mule he’d given his dad for Christmas a few years back. He’d offered a new one but been shot down. “Nothing wrong with old Bessie, here! She gets me all around the place with no complaints.”
About now Dad, Robbie, David, Jr., and Will would be pitching their tents somewhere in the Western Sierras, all set to enjoy the last warm weather up there before it got too cold. They always invited him, but if he’d gone, one of the others would have had to stay behind and babysit the place, and besides…he hadn’t camped since high school. The closest he’d come was his new getaway, which allowed him to do his job in a beautiful setting and get his doctor off his back.
Stress! It made success possible but don’t try to tell that to the man who insisted his blood pressure climbed and his stomach geared up for an ulcer or six. So he had a little acid reflux. They made drugs for that, didn’t they? Type A plus, the old fuddy duddy called him. Maybe so! But a man didn’t become a self-made billionaire by cruising around in an ATV checking on the growth of lima beans.
Approaching thirty, he’d earned more in the past week than most people did in a lifetime. His family and his doctor needed to back off and let him fulfill his destiny. His stepmom, Autumn, popped in nearly every day he was in town with “healthy food” and invitations to come by for dinner. She also threw local girls in his path so often he nearly tripped over them every time he stepped outside his door. One had even turned up at his office with a basket of produce. Autumn asked her to please drop off the eggplants and tomatoes since she planned to be in the city anyway…
He could take a turn around the place and check on the various crews—as he’d promised—and settle at his desk again within a couple of hours to pick his day back up. Dad just never got it. His time was too valuable to inspect cantaloupes. James had offered to pay a manager to help out, but a stranger on the place? Not a chance.
Not when Dad had a son “available” to help out once in a while. A son who had already disappointed him by leaving the family business to pursue his own career after college. And not agricultural college, either, where he could learn something “useful.” His hard-won Harvard MBA just couldn’t compete with an associate’s degree in the care and cross-pollination of rice varietals. At least in David MacKay’s opinion. Though he hadn’t said anything in years, his dad still had disappointment in his eyes when he looked at his eldest son across the family dinner table.
Cruising down the path behind the house toward the fields, he mused that he should have purchased a condo in Tahoe or Sonoma. And he would have, too, if his dad hadn’t gotten wind of his plans from his mom and been delighted to remind James of the plot of land he’d set aside for him to build a home on. How could he forget? Dad had driven him past it every birthday until he left for university.
With autumn approaching, many of the crops had already been harvested, so things were slower than most of the year. Probably why Dad trusted him not to let the place fall into ruin.
Despite his impatience, the thousand things he should be doing for MacKay International with his time, the gentle, rolling hills with their soft, late summer colors soothed his eyes. He stopped the vehicle for a moment to admire the pale-green shoots of a cover crop rising from the deep, rich soil. Having worked for his dad through high school—and before—James understood the necessity of these intermittent plantings to keep the nutrient content in their fields. No chemicals touched MacKay land. Never. They composted and fed with various organic compounds and cycled crops�
��everything to ensure the land would continue to be fertile for generations to come.
He respected the work his family did. If only they could see the value in his.
Starting up again, he drove into a wide aisle in the apple orchard planted by his Autumn’s great grandparents who had settled in the valley sometime around 1900. A few of the trees had been replaced over the years, but many of their gnarled branches dated from the original planting, still bearing fruit welcomed by residents of Cedar Valley and beyond every fall. Even now, the ruddy fruit weighted the trees, ready to be picked within the next week or two. He reached out and plucked a ripe apple from a low-hanging branch, without slowing, and rubbed it on his shirt. A habit from his childhood when he and his brothers had played tag in the twilight among these trees, eating apples to avoid having to go home for sustenance before full dark.
He emerged from the shady path and slowed the Mule to allow his eyes to adjust to the brilliant sunlight at the top of a gentle slope overlooking much of the nursery and farm. The patchwork of fields below would look different at every season, but now they were more dark green and brown than anything. Nearby, a crew worked picking something—the Autumn Breeze Zucchini, a variety named after their stepmom, if he still knew his squash. He could expect a loaf of fragrant zucchini nut bread waiting in his kitchen by the time he returned to the cabin. Autumn could not understand his avoidance of sweets—especially those prepared with vegetables from their land—and he’d never been able to resist anything she baked. She had a key to his home and didn’t mind using it.
Watching the men and women work, he shook his head and began to turn away then snapped his head back. Over the deep-green field, far off, something bobbed in the sky. Not his helicopter—he’d sent it back to the city, since he was stuck in Hooterville at least until the happy campers returned.
Melody Anne's Billionaire Universe: Floating Hearts (Kindle Worlds Novella) (MacKay Destiny Book 1) Page 1