Harts of Arizona Series

by Yahrah St. John

  Seconds later, she was gone and it was just Chynna and Noah again. “I’m sorry we keep getting interrupted,” Noah said. “Perhaps it’s the universe’s way of telling us to slow things down.” If they hadn’t been stopped by his in-laws and Caleb’s arrival, Noah knew where they would be right now—naked and between the sheets.

  “There’s always later.” Chynna smiled mischievously.

  Noah was about to comment when Caleb returned in a clean shirt, jeans and wearing the same snakeskin cowboy boots as before. “The prodigal son is back,” Noah said, walking toward his brother, but then Caleb stopped dead in his tracks as he came face-to-face with Chynna and truly saw her for the first time. “Why didn’t anyone tell me we had a celebrity in our midst? If you had, I would have dressed better.”

  “What are you talking about, Caleb?” Madelyn asked.

  “C’mon.” Caleb laughed incredulously, looking back and forth between his parents and siblings. “Don’t tell me none of you knew you were having cocktails with the Chynna James.” He turned to Rylee. “C’mon, sis, you have all her music.”

  Noah turned to Chynna, and her entire face blanched. That’s when he stared directly at Rylee, but his sister hung her head low too ... and that’s when Noah knew Caleb was telling the truth. The woman who’d been a part of his family for weeks, would he’d been falling for, been about to make love to, had been lying to him about her real identity as a pop star?

  Noah fixed his eyes on the woman of the hour, willing her to tell him the truth. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “I’m so, so sorry for the deception,” the words tumbled out of Chynna’s mouth.

  “Really?” Noah snapped.

  “Yes, really.” She turned to face Madelyn and Isaac. “I’ve wanted to tell you the truth.” Tears welled in her eyes. “But you see, my life has been in turmoil, carried out in the media for the entire world to see. I,I just needed a little reprieve from the real world for a world for a while, so I used my twin’s name, Kenya, instead of telling you my real name, which is Chynna James.”

  “I’ll say,” Caleb replied. “You probably wanted to get away from all those folks calling you a slut and a homewrecker.”

  “Caleb!” His mother was horrified by his bad manners.

  “I’m just repeating what the press said weeks ago. They had pictures of her,” he said, nodding toward Chynna, “kissing a married man.”

  “I am not a homewrecker!” Chynna stomped her feet. She couldn’t believe the progress that she’d made with Noah was about to slip through her fingers. “None of what they wrote is true.” She faced Noah with pleading eyes. “Just because the press writes a fiction doesn’t make it fact.”

  “Then how did they get photos?” Noah asked. Although he hadn’t seen them, it sounded awfully suspicious. And where there was smoke ... Chynna stared at Noah several long moments. She could see in his eyes that his image of her was tarnished. Will he ever look at me the same? She gave a horrified cry and ran toward the main house.

  Noah turned a murderous look on Caleb.

  “Listen, I’m sorry, okay?” Caleb’s voice softened at seeing a beautiful woman in distress. “I was just running my mouth off at what the tabloids say. How was I to know she hadn’t told you the truth? I mean, you are dating her, are you not?”

  Noah stared at Caleb with bewilderment. For the first time, Caleb was right about one thing. He’d been falling for a woman he didn’t really know. A woman who’d lied and deceived him about who she truly was. And if she was lying to him about something as simple as her real name, what other secrets was Chynna hiding?

  He stared at her retreating figure and wondered, Can I believe anything that happened between us in the last two weeks? Or was it all just a lie or a figment of his imagination? Who is the real Chynna?

  Acknowledgements

  Deciding to branch out on my own with e-books and forego traditional publishing was a little bit scary, but I am hopeful that my readers will continue to want more of the romantic, sexy stories I have in store for them.

  I would first like to thank Bob Mount and the entire Westgate River Ranch family in Lake Wales, FL for their support of this book. They allowed me to stay at the ranch and follow them around for a day to complete my research for this series. I would also like to thank Wayne Gey for allowing me to tour his ranch & home to help me understand what it takes to run a breeding ranch. Check out pictures of my journey on my Facebook page:

  My support system is vast, but they keep me grounded. Thank you to my love Freddie Blackman who reminds me every day why I write romance. A big thank you to my dad and mom Austin and Asilee Mitchell, my BFFs who are like sisters to me Tiffany Griffin, Tonya Conway, Therolyn Rodgers and Dimitra Astwood; last but not least my personal gurus: Kiara Ashanti and Bhushan Sukhram; you guys are the best entourage a girl could have.

  Entangled Hearts 2

  Dedication

  To my right hand, assistant and friend Melonie Hancock.

  Dear Reader

  Many readers have written me on why I chose to stop Entangled Hearts Volume I midstream, the answer is simple. I wanted to leave you wanting more. Most of my life, I have enjoyed watching soap operas and serialized dramas like Scandal and that’s why I ended it with a cliffhanger. Volume II picks up where Volume I left off, so you won’t miss a bit of the drama.

  Actress Kenya James is falling in love for the first time with music mogul Lucas Kingston, but he has no idea that she’s been imitating her sister ‘Chynna’ and when he does, he cuts all ties with her. I was intrigued by the idea of forgiveness and just how strong the power of love could be. Meanwhile her twin, pop singer Chynna has met the man of her dreams in widowed rancher Noah Hart. At the beginning of Volume II, Noah has learned Chynna’s true identity and falls even deeper in love with the honey-blonde diva. With the paparazzi so prevalent in today’s media, I loved toying with whether true love could survive in such turbulent conditions and is it possible to have more than one great love?

  I’m really proud of the story I’ve created and hope you have enjoyed Chynna and Kenya’s fascinating life and loves Noah and Lucas. They aren’t your average heroes but are worth fighting for. If you loved Kenya and Chynna’s stories…the story doesn’t end here. Stay tuned for Book III in the Harts of Arizona series when I tell Rylee’s story in Untamed Hearts.

  I always love to hear from fans, so feel free to write me: yahrah@yahrahstjohn.com.

  Or visit my website: www.yahrahstjohn.com

  All the Best,

  Yahrah St. John

  Chapter 1

  Chynna James stared out into the dark Tucson night and wished she could go back in time. She wished she could go back and tell the man she’d fallen in love with the truth, but now it was too late. Tonight, Noah Hart had learned she’d been living a lie.

  As one of the country’s best-selling artists of all time, Chynna had never anticipated that being rich and famous would have its pitfalls. She’d sold millions of records, had legions of fans and had all the money her hands and purse could hold, but she’d been unhappy. So she’d come up with a daring scheme to switch places with her identical twin Kenya. Kenya would go back to Los Angeles in her place, allowing Chynna time to find herself. It had seemed like a simple plan until Noah.

  Chynna walked over to the closet in the Harts’ guest bedroom, pulled Kenya’s suitcase out and began pulling clothes off the hanger and throwing them inside.

  Noah had been unlike any other man Chynna had ever met, and from the moment she’d gotten lost and stumbled onto the Golden Oaks Ranch she’d been smitten. It certainly hadn’t been love at first sight, though for Chynna perhaps it had been lust.

  Noah was a widower and breaking through his defenses had taken time—time she didn’t have. So she’d kept asking Kenya for more time, a week here, another week there. She’d wanted, no needed, to see if Noah was the real deal.
He was. And she’d fallen for him hard.

  She walked over to the nearby dresser and threw some of the lingerie from it into the suitcase.

  Eventually, Noah had let down his guard long enough to let her in. Tonight had been their first date. He’d publicly taken her to his family’s thirty-fifth anniversary party for their dude ranch, and Chynna had been on top of the world.

  Now, she rushed into the adjacent bathroom and began grabbing her toiletries on the marble countertop. She glanced at herself in the mirror and hated the person she’d become. She should have been honest with Noah from the start. He’d deserved to hear the truth from her, not from his brother, Caleb.

  Now he knew her name wasn’t Kenya, but Chynna, the Chynna James, Multi-Platinum recording artist for R&K Records. And the look of betrayal she’d seen in his eyes at the discovery had broken her heart, which is why it was time for her to go. She had to leave the ranch before Noah asked her to.

  “Noah, you have to go after her!” Rylee Hart implored her older brother, Noah, after they’d just learned at the ranch’s anniversary party that the Kenya James who’d been staying at the Golden Oaks Ranch with their family the last few weeks was actually Chynna James, the famous pop singer. “Don’t let things end like this.”

  Noah debated with himself for several moments. He still couldn’t believe what had just happened. Kenya, the woman he was starting to fall for, was actually Chynna James? It didn’t make any sense. Yet despite how upset he was at Chynna for lying to him, he needed answers. Why had she done it? Why had she lied to him and allowed him to believe she was someone else?

  He decided to follow his sister’s advice. “Excuse me,” Noah said, nodding to his parents, Isaac and Madelyn Hart. He rolled his eyes at his wayward brother, Caleb, before rushing toward the main house. When he made it to the staircase, he took them two at a time until he reached the east wing where his sister and Kenya, no, make that Chynna, were staying.

  He didn’t knock on Chynna’s bedroom door, instead he burst in. He found her sitting with a pile of clothes at her feet as she tried stuffing them unceremoniously into her suitcases, which he noticed looked rather expensive—probably designer no doubt. She’d changed out of the chiffon dress she’d been wearing and had put on a T-shirt and jeans.

  “Chynna!”

  She jumped when she heard Noah use her real name. When she turned around, she wasn’t staring at him as she’d done half an hour ago when the promise of later had seemed so thrilling, when he’d wanted nothing better than to remove the strapless chiffon dress she wore from her curvaceous body and take her to bed. He’d been ready to make Chynna the first woman he’d slept with since his late wife Maya’s death. It was a big damn deal for him which why this was all so disconcerting. In a few short minutes, he’d gone from being horny as hell to having his entire world turned on its ear.

  “I should’ve never stayed here,” Chynna said, turning her back again to him to complete her task. “It was a mistake, and I’m going back to Canyon Ranch.”

  “So that’s it?!” Noah roared. Just then, he heard a rumble of thunder in the distance, but he ignored it. “You’re just going to leave? Don’t you think I deserve some answers?”

  “Is there really any use in me explaining?” Chynna asked, giving him a curt glance. “Will you believe anything I have to say now?”

  “Well, I don’t know, Chynna, but perhaps you should give it a start,” he said tersely.

  Chynna threw into the suitcase one of the plaid shirts she’d purchased from the ranch general store and stood up to face him. He could see her warring with herself as if she didn’t know where to start, so he helped her out. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

  Chynna walked over to the window and looked out at the patrons still mingling at the ranch’s anniversary party. She was scared. She didn’t know how Noah would react to hearing the reasons why she’d kept the truth from him or even if he would understand them. “I’ve been unhappy for quite some time with my singing career and when those pictures of me with Blake Cooper, a married actor I was working with, came out during rehearsals for my first movie, I bolted. I came here to Tucson—to Canyon Ranch—to be with my sister, Kenya, to get away from the press who’d been dogging me.”

  She spun around to face him. “The two weeks at the spa with my twin were some of the happiest times I’ve had in years, and I didn’t want to lose it. I remembered what it was like to be in control of my own life and destiny rather than doing what my manager, publicist and record label tells me to do. So I came up with the idea to switch places. Kenya would go to Los Angeles in my place, and I would stay at the spa and regroup, figure out how to claim my life and come back with a plan.”

  “It sounds plausible, but why would your sister agree to the arrangement?” Noah asked.

  Chynna shrugged. She’d wondered that very same thing herself, but she’d been too selfish to really consider the reason Kenya had agreed to the arrangement. She’d just wanted out. “Perhaps she was as unhappy as me? Anyway, we’d switched places before, and no one knew the difference, and it wasn’t going to harm anyone. It was only supposed to be for a week, and we’d switch back.”

  Another roar of thunder echoed, and Noah sensed rain was upon them. He could only imagine their guests would be running for cover and his family could probably use his help to tear down the party, but he couldn’t leave, not now. He needed to hear more.

  “On my first day alone at the spa, I took a drive and decided to go hiking to another location Kenya had mentioned. On my way back, I was accosted by these cattle.” She saw a reluctant smile cross Noah’s features at the memory of their first encounter. “They caused me to hit a fence and when I woke up ...” She paused, looking into his deep dark-brown eyes, then said, “I saw one of the most handsome men I’d ever met.”

  Noah raised an eyebrow. He highly doubted that to be true. In her line of work, Chynna was surrounded by beautiful people. Why should she be intrigued by a simple rancher like me?

  Chynna recognized the self-doubt in Noah’s eyes, but continued her story. “The first moment I met you, Noah, I felt something, and I was curious to see where it went. There wasn’t an ulterior motive. I just felt something real and genuine for the first time in years.” Her voice choked but she continued on. “And the more you pushed me away, the more I became intrigued. Especially when you challenged me that I wasn’t good enough or too bourgeoisie to stay, so after my first week passed, I asked Kenya to stay on, and well, Kenya was having the time of her life playing me.” Chynna laughed derisively. “Seems she’s managed a love connection with the one man I’d always been trying to catch. How’s that for irony?”

  She glanced in Noah’s direction, but he wasn’t laughing in the slightest. In fact, she could feel the rage inside him seething on a slow boil.

  “Why didn’t you tell me the truth, Chynna?” Seconds later, he heard the tap of rain against the windowpane. Noah looked toward the window. Dammit! He needed to know the answer to his question, but there was a lot to be done outside, and his family would need his help.

  “Go!” Chynna sighed. “They need you.”

  Noah stared at Chynna long and hard for several long moments. He hated to end this conversation without having the answers he so desperately needed, but he had a duty to attend to all his guests. “We’ll finish this conversation later.”

  “I don’t know, perhaps I should—”

  But Chynna didn’t get the words out, because Noah interrupted her. “Promise me you’ll stay until we’ve talked.” His dark eyes burned into hers, and as much as Chynna wanted to get out of Dodge, she owed Noah, heck the entire Hart family, an explanation and at the very least a thank you for the hospitality. “Okay.”

  “We’ll talk later,” Noah said, and soon he was out the door, leaving Chynna to wonder when he came back if there would be anything left between them.

 
An hour later Noah hadn’t returned, so Chynna went downstairs to see if there was anything she could do. There was a lot of commotion going on. Party staff had brought the food and decorations in from the anniversary celebration outside, and the house was bustling with people and activity.

  Chynna eventually found Madelyn and Rylee in the kitchen trying to organize the efforts. “Is there anything I can do?” she asked, looking at both women.

  “Roll up your sleeves and help us start packing up this food,” Madelyn replied.

  Chynna noticed that Madelyn didn’t quite look her in the eye, but she understood. She’d lied to them all, except Rylee. Rylee gave her a half-smile as they put the food in the containers and double refrigerators throughout the kitchen.

  “We’ll have to take some of this food to our guests for the inconvenience,” Madelyn said.

  “Will that even be possible?” Rylee pushed the blinds aside to glance out the window. “It’s raining cats and dogs out there.”

  “Let’s just make due for now,” her mother said.

  The Hart men, Noah, Caleb and Isaac, eventually returned to the main house shortly afterward and came barreling through the back door by the kitchen. The three men were soaking wet.

  Madelyn pointed at them. “Don’t take another step.” She placed her hand up to stop them. “Take off your clothes right there in the mud room.”

  “Maddie—” Isaac started to enter the kitchen, but his wife held her hand up.

  “Don’t you Maddie me,” she said. “I don’t want you tracking mud throughout the house, so just strip right there.”

  Caleb laughed. “But Mama, we do have guests,” he said, looking directly at Chynna, “or should I say a celebrity? We wouldn’t want to damage her delicate sensibilities.”